


never beat much faster

by temerity (forsanethaec)



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe, Beach Towns, Bisexual Character, Break Up, Cunnilingus, F/F, Family, Fingering, Fisting, Genderswap, Harry Potter - Freeform, Infidelity, Libraries, Public Sex, Skinny Dipping, Summer Romance, beach feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-20
Updated: 2015-04-20
Packaged: 2018-03-24 23:59:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3789118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forsanethaec/pseuds/temerity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a bad break-up, Louis escapes to the beach. (In which Niall is a local, Louis reads Harry Potter for the first time, and summer is a slow burn.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	never beat much faster

**Author's Note:**

  * For [justaboat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/justaboat/gifts).



> this is for [sharon](http://archiveofourown.org/users/justaboat), because she asked. :) thanks also to [lucy](http://archiveofourown.org/users/balefully) for helping my dumb ass figure out all the sex scenes. there are a lot… more of them… than i anticipated. and thank you to my job interview in florida for giving me 36 hrs of summer vaca and an opportunity to reunite with the mighty atlantic. idk about the job yet, but at least i'll get this fic out of it?
> 
> louis and niall are cis girls; the rest, though not heavily featured, are boys. this includes passing references to off-screen harry/nick that i didn't feel merited a tag, as well as off-screen douchebro zayn. like, be warned -- he's a dick in this. soz. this is totes unedited and i am probably trash! title is from "body gold" by oh wonder. and a note about setting -- this exists in some kind of AU where there are seasonal northerly beaches like this in the UK. ye olde cape cod?? whatever. THANK YOU ALL FOR PUTTING UP WITH MY BULLSHIT.

Louis doesn't wash up at her mum's place at the shore until summer's already in full swing, and it only happens then because she walks in on Zayn fucking some other bird in his apartment on a Wednesday afternoon and London is suddenly no longer an option. It's not that she wants to leave the city, far from it, but the city's where he is with his useless non-apologies and the sick taste in her throat and it's just easier to run away.

She listens to Joy Division and Brand New on the way down, plus any other grungy old shit that turns up in the box of random cassettes she got at a thrift shop last year, since they're the only thing her shitty hatchback's stereo can handle. Turns it up loud and drives with the windows down, her hair whipping around her face, mind white.

She actually holds it together until she's on the doorstep of the cottage in the cool dusk, her sad little sport bag at her feet and the smell of salt and sand already on her skin. Her mum looks sleepy when she answers the bell, wearing a dressing gown Louis used to play in when she was little, pretending she was a princess, before their family split all up and Louis outgrew the house in Donny and her mum did too. It's only then that she starts crying.

*

There's part-time work behind the register at the skate-surf shop on the tiny beach town's main drag, sandwiched between the ice cream place and a shuttered bank, so Louis puts herself up there and settles in to hide bitterly from the world as long as she possibly can. Until the fall term starts, at least, maybe longer if she can swing it. She wonders what people do at her age when they just never go back to London. Disappear from the face of the fucking earth, it feels like.

She actually hates it, too – the sand in the street getting in her shoes all the time, the constant interjections of the gulls. Hates having none of her people and nothing to do here, and most of all hates the situation that made her leave the place where she did have those things. She sleeps in most days, laid out sweating atop the sheets of the trundle in the cottage's back bedroom. Lottie and Fizz have the bunk bed, the twins in the double that Louis' bed pulls out of. The babies are in Jay's room, where Dan stay sometimes too. Louis barely knows them. She feels too big for this whole thing, cartoonish, like she's trying to fit into clothes she outgrew years ago.

Nights, she sits on the curb that borders the beach nearest the cottage, buries her toes in cold sand and looks out at the sea and talks to Liam and Harry on the phone. Liam has a real job at home in Wolverhampton but he says he'll try to make it out to the shore eventually. Louis issues idle threats about having all her new seagull friends shit on his head when he does finally show up, and Liam plays along even more amenably than usual, humoring her as if she's dying.

With Harry she can talk about the whole thing a little more, partially because he's pushier with it and partially because honesty just comes easier with him, pulled softly out of her like a rising ache. They've known each other long enough.

“It just feels so cliché,” she tells him one night, listening to the crackle of the cell delay, the staticky clattering of Harry making breakfast in his Los Angeles flat eight time zones away. “I mean, I literally got let off early from nannying and I thought I'd surprise him. Like, what the fuck happened to me? Becoming that kind of girlfriend, I swear to God. And – he gave me a _key_ , Haz. And they were on the bloody living room sofa.”

“Ouch.”

“Christ,” she scrubs at her eyes, trying to rid herself of the image made fresh like it was yesterday and not two weeks ago. “It's like he didn't care at all what I walked into. Like – oh well, was bound to happen sooner or later, you know. He's barely even apologized. I mean, I pretty much chucked him properly then and there, but still.”

“You're like the Shaggy song.”

“I'm hanging up the fucking phone right now.”

“No, I'm sorry,” he says. To his credit, he's not laughing. “It sucks, Lou. You got dicked around. It's not fair.”

Her mouth ducks and she can't say anything back. Shrugs deeper into the too-big jumper she's wearing pulled almost to the hem of her shorts, realizing as she does it that it belonged to Harry once, forever ago. Hers now. She listens to his fridge open and shut, the maybe-sound of a whisk against a metal bowl. “Making eggs?” she asks.

“Yeah. Nick's coming over. We're doing, like, brunch. Too expensive if you go out, and you have to wait, like, three hours anywhere you go anyway, and most of the places won't even give you a mimosa in line without making you sell your soul and your firstborn in exchange for it, so--”

“Skip to the end, you're making it at home. Sounds romantic.”

“Hope so.”

“You like him, don't you,” she says, sighing. Harry's never going to come back to England. “A lot.”

“Yeah,” he says, and she can hear him smiling.“But I can tell you that I hate him if it'll help. Men are pigs and all that. Worthless trash, the lot of us.”

“That's sounding better.” The corner of her mouth lifts despite her black mood.

“Nah, but now's the time to lean on those good ol' bisexual tendencies of yours,” he says sagely. “You're lucky to have the option, Lou. You don't need to rely on worthless male trash to keep you warm at night.”

“Girls'll do you just as bad as boys.”

“C'mon. Where's your optimism? It's summer and you work at the beach. You must be up to your ears in, like, bikini babes.”

“Ha,” she states. “I wish. Mostly it's fat old men who want change for the vending machines and sticky little kids who won't stop touching the surfboards.”

“All in good time, babe,” he says. “You'll see.”

She relinquishes him to his brunch preparations soon after that, and when she hangs up she has a pair of texts from Zayn, the first since she left the city without saying goodbye. _I miss you :(_ then, _where are u lou? Can we talk?_

If he ever actually cared about her, he'd know where she'd go to get away. He knows where her mum moved, was with her all through the upheaval of it. If he gave a shit, he'd have shown up already.

She looks out at the grey slosh of the ocean, eating darkly at the tideline under the cloudy night sky. No moon to light it up. Thinks of chucking her phone into the water, but in the end decides Zayn's not worth the cost of replacing it.

*

Harry's prophecy doesn't come true right away, until July is waning thick and sweltering like a harvest moon. Louis' skin has tanned to a nutty brown and she's sun-low all the time, sleep-walking around the shop and onto the sidewalk for smokes and back into the air-conditioned cool like she's only half there. Sales and rentals of elbow pads and boards and wetsuits bleed together, one after the other, and it's a week from August and Louis doesn't know what to do about going back for her next term. Zayn was going to audit some classes at her uni in the fall. She would have to see him. Would have to put the whole thing to bed.

She's alone in the shop on a Tuesday, perched on the counter in board shorts and a giant vest she stole from Liam over a blue and gold geo-print bandeau. The glass case beneath her houses the GoPros and other expensive shit, and it rattles in weak protest when she knocks her bare heels against it. Harry's kicking her arse in Words With Friends – the depths of her boredom this summer have proved terrible and infinite – and she barely registers the chime at the door of someone walking in.

“Hiya,” comes a bright Irish voice. Louis looks up. There's a thin blonde girl standing there in a sunset-colored bikini top, flip-flops and little denim shorts, smiling at Louis. Her hair is cut short, stringy with sea salt above her shoulders and over sunburned ears. “Could I rent a bodyboard from you?”

“Yeah.” Louis hops down off the counter, pleasantly warm from having the sole privilege of looking at this pretty stranger. “For the day?”

“The week or something would be sick if you can do it,” the girl says cheerfully. A pair of silver Aviators slides down her freckly ski-slope nose and she pushes them up on top of her head, blinking at Louis. “I've been out of town for too long. Dying to get back in the water.”

“Sure thing,” Louis says. “They're back this way.” The girl is already following her to the right corner like she knows this shop pretty well. “Are you local?”

“Born and raised,” the girl says. “Well, my Da's back in Ireland. I guess technically _that's_ where I was born and raised, but my mam's been out here since I was small, so I split my time.”

“Is that where you were before you came back, then? Ireland?” The girl nods. “My mum lives here now too, but it's my first time spending the summer. I've been here since, like, end of June. Bored out of my fucking mind.”

“Oh, cool,” says the girl, and it's amusingly earnest. Aside from maybe Liam, Louis has never heard someone sound so much like they meant some random, vaguely rude bullshit was cool when they said it.

Blondie sticks her hand out. “I'm Niall. Welcome to paradise, right?”

Louis startles herself laughing. She takes Niall's warm little hand to shake. “Louis. Or Lou, mostly. Pleased to meet you.”

“You too,” Niall says. “So, can I have that one there? The green one?” She points to a bodyboard over Louis' shoulder.

“How come you don't have your own, if you grew up here?” Louis asks while she gets it down from the rack and dusts sand off the front.

“I did,” Niall says on a sigh. “Stolen by an ex, it's a damn tragedy. She moved to the States, though. Santa Monica. So I suppose it's in a better place now.”

“Oh,” Louis says faintly. It's all she can get out without letting on that her brain has exploded into a dangerous and unregulated fireworks display of _she she she_. “Shame.”

“Was,” Niall says. She stands there with the board under arm, looking like a proper beach bum, and Louis doesn't realize she's staring until Niall says, “So, what do I owe you?” on a smile with pink in her cheeks, and Louis has to snap out of it. She cashes Niall out and says see you later and watches dumbly as she walks away down the sidewalk in the direction of the beach, Aviators back on her face, a perfect complement to her pretty little mouth. At least Louis knows the board has to come back to her in a few days. It's a small town – Niall isn't going far.

 _Met a girl_ , she texts Harry that night, lying on her back in the trundle bed as the ceiling fan pushes the tepid air in waves over her burning skin and her sisters all breathe around her.

 _Did you now?!_ he replies. _Get in!!_

She can't muster a good reply, too alarmed by the dreamy smile on her own face as she thinks about Niall, her happy little voice, her narrow frame in her jean shorts, unaggressive curves in all the right places. Her ex- _girl_ friend. It's the first time all summer that Louis falls asleep something close to happy.

*

Niall's back the very next day, striding in with the green bodyboard under her arm and a well-loved beach bag on the other shoulder, towel spilling out of it. She's in a sheer white cover-up today, and it only skims the tops of her pale thighs. Her bikini bottom is visible under the hem, and the sweet little curve of her arse. Louis looks her in the eye very intently.

“Trouble with the board?” she asks, though she can't keep herself from smirking through it.

Niall laughs. “No, I was just thinking after I left yesterday – if it's your first summer here, have you surfed or bodyboarded or anything before? What have you been up to at the beach?”

“Oh, you know,” Louis says, waving an airy hand. “Staring moodily at the water, working on my melanoma.”

This makes Niall laugh too – a checkmark in Louis' book, that she can appreciate a tasteless joke.

“So that's a no?” she asks.

“Um – yes. No,” Louis says, “I've not surfed or anything. I dunno if it's for me.”

Niall scoffs. “Don't be ridiculous,” she says, and her tone is so patently fond that it makes Louis' stomach do a little flip. “What time do you get off?”

“My, uh... my manager takes over at two,” Louis says. Her brain feels like it's a step behind this, unable to flirt or form any coherent thought.

“So grab a board,” Niall says, and the smile that tilts across her pink lips is nearly shy, “and meet me at the lifeguard stand off First Street when you've got out.”

“I – okay,” Louis says, and then she grins. “Gonna put water wings on me and chuck me off the pier? 'S how my mum learned to swim here when she was little.”

“Could if you want,” Niall says easily. “You never know. See where the afternoon takes us.”

“And the evening,” Louis says before she can stop herself. She grins like, _well, there's that_ , while Niall flushes and laughs.

“Deal,” she says. “See you at two, Lou,” and she has to know Louis is ogling her bum while she walks out the door, but she doesn't seem to mind.

*

Louis picks out a blue board and gives herself a haphazard once-over with the aerosol sunscreen, leaves her real clothes in the back office at the shop and bikes the few blocks over to First Street barefoot in her bandeau and board shorts, weaving as she steers one-handed, the board under her arm, squinting into the high sun behind her shades.

She spots the bright back of Niall's head out on the beach as she pulls up, locking her bike to the whitewashed wooden leg of the lifeguard chair. Niall's sat on her rented board, hunched over texting with her phone against her knees in the shadow of her body, her feet planted in the sand.

"Hey," Louis calls, trotting across the hot sand with the board on top of her head. Niall looks around and bursts into a grin.

"You made it," she says, pivoting on her board to look up at Louis.

"Yeah, well," Louis says. "Busy schedule, but I moved some things around." Niall laughs. She's just in her bikini now, and Louis takes advantage of the protection of her sunglasses to give her a once-over that she sort of hopes Niall can feel anyway.

"So," Niall says. She's flushed with heat, shading her eyes with one hand. "D'you wanna sit….?"

"Thought we were, like," Louis jerks her head at the water. "Surfing or whatever." The beach isn't too crowded today, a few people dotting around in the surf or sprawled out under umbrellas. A knot of little kids is shrieking as they chase a ratty gull nearby.

Niall nods her head side to side, looking out at the sea. "You're one of those people who likes to go in the water as soon as they get to the beach," she notes, but there's no judgment in her voice -- it's like she's adding it to a mental profile she's building of Louis. "Alright then. Let's go."

There's nothing sharp about Niall except maybe the insistent way she smiles, that certain incorrigible quality about her cheerfulness. And even that is gentle somehow. Louis isn't used to it, being drawn to people who don't have some edge to cut you back with. Niall's must be buried somewhere. Louis wants to figure her out. 

She follows her at a jog down to the water with their boards under their arms, laughing as she stumbles in the sand and then through the surf and into the sea up to their hips. The water is cold even at the height of summer and it shocks a yelp out of Louis and a joyful whoop out of Niall. She turns toward Louis, skin sparkling with drops of saltwater, and Louis has to dive under to stop her head from spinning.

Niall shows her the basics after that. As with most things Louis enjoys, it's not hard to be mediocre at this: paddling along with a wave with her chest lifted off the board, pulling into the curl of it, letting it bop her around and carry her down the beach if she's lucky. She and Niall jockey for the easy breakers, shouting at each other and splashing and getting tangled in the wrist straps of their boards.

Louis is just getting the hang of it when a fast little breaker catches her off-guard and sweeps her off at a tumbling clip for one dizzying moment, before dumping her unceremoniously in the shallows like a beached whale. She lies there gasping and grinning at the blue sky, sand in her bikini, Niall shouting indistinctly from back where they started.

She sits up in time to see Niall gliding her direction on another wave, up on one knee on her board like she owns the damn ocean. She flashes Louis a grin, curling in to pull the edge of her board up the rise of the wave. 

Louis sticks her tongue out in response, yells, "Oh, you fancy, huh," and Niall's board goes right out from under her, sends her crashing spectacularly into the water in a flail of limbs and color. It would be a scary fall if they were in water deeper than three feet, but as such it's just comedic.

Niall pops up laughing already, spitting and pushing the mess of her hair off her forehead. She floats into Louis' space, board dragging in the surf, and flops down in the wet sand beside her.

"Smooth," Louis says, biting back a smile.

"I don't do it for the prestige," Niall replies airily. Louis snorts.

"It's not the most dignified sport, I'll give you that. Made me feel a bit like a seal."

"Yeah, but when you get it right, man," Niall sighs, propped on an elbow beside Louis, her legs stretched out and covered in clumps of sand. "Just--" she sails a hand over the air in front of her, up and down like the waves. "Sometimes it's perfect," she says. "And if it's not, hey. You get up again, don't you?"

"That's fucking deep, Niall." Louis is laughing but she likes it, too, likes everything about Niall so immediately that it's a bit hard to think about. Niall twinkles up at her, and Louis has to look away first.

They lie in the shallows like that, looking out at the horizon, until Louis' fingers and toes start to feel wrinkly and Niall suggests sleepily that they go back up the beach. Getting up is hard, sand everywhere and knees wobbly, and they rinse off in the water and then stagger ashore like something newly made, two sets of footprints washed away behind them.

Niall puts on more sunscreen and stretches out on her towel, and Louis, completely unprepared for real beach time, sits on her board beside her, air-drying.

"So if your family lives here," Niall asks, "how come you haven't come down before?"

Louis frowns. "I'm at uni in London, and normally I spend the summer as a nanny, but…" Her heartbeat trips unhappily. "I don't know. Just needed a break this year."

Niall nods, doesn't push it, and Louis suddenly regrets not taking the opportunity. _I'm single, I like girls, too_ , her brain whines nervously, but they both feel like such foreign concepts, such a weird thing to admit again. The girls bit, less so -- that stayed true in her bones even when she was with Zayn, obviously. But being single -- and looking -- for the first time in for-fucking-ever, that's weird. Harder to move back into, to find the words. She's out of practice.

"D'you like it?"

"What?"

"The town, I mean. Living here. I know you said you've been bored."

Louis huffs a laugh. She lies back on her elbows, fidgeting with her bikini then resting her hands on her sandy stomach, wet hair sticking to her sweaty bare back. "It's just slow. I like doing nothing, but, y'know, it is boring, too. But, eh. I'm like that no matter where I am."

"What do you do, then?"

"Mind the shop. Ring my friends, I guess. Bike around and smoke spliffs in the hammock out back of my mum's cottage. I should probably go find a book to read or something. Is that what people do who live at the beach? Read books?"

Niall smiles, but she's harder to read with her sunglasses back on her face. "I did the entire Harry Potter series in two weeks one summer."

"That counts." Louis reaches up for Niall's bag and finds her own shades, slips them over her nose, which she can feel burning a bit. "I haven't read 'em," she admits. "I'm a bad millenial."

"Oh, mate." Niall turns on her side, and Louis tries very hard to focus on the literary conversation rather than looking at her cleavage. Niall has the kind of boobs Louis is always jealous of -- little B-cup handfuls. Louis' are just big enough to attract an extra level of obnoxious male attention. She prefers her arse.

"I'll lend 'em to you," Niall's saying. Louis nods. She is a terrible person. "They're good beach reading. They're just good, like. You've gotta read Harry Potter, you're fucking English."

It surprises a laugh out of Louis. "Fair point," she says. "Alright. I'll try to before I go back."

"When's that?"

"I --" Louis frowns. "I dunno," she mumbles. "Term starts mid-September, but."

"You might not go?"

"I should," Louis says doubtfully. "I'm on scholarship, I'll lose it if I mess about with my credits."

Niall cocks her head, lifts her shades up onto her forehead and shields her eyes so she can look at Louis properly. "Why don't you want to go back?"

Louis bites her lip. She wants, in equal measures, to tell Niall everything and to lie. It's so stupid, that instinct, but she's been burned before by giving too much of herself away.

"I broke up with my boyfriend," she says, and it comes out quiet, a surprise even to herself. "It was just … shitty. And I'm not really ready to go back to all that again. Like, the place of it."

"Yeah, 'course," Niall says, still peering at her. "I'm sorry, Lou. I get why you'd wanna stay away."

"Serves me right for dating a bloke," Louis says, forced-casual, heart thumping so hard she can feel it in her eardrums. "Gonna stick with girls from now on. I've learned my lesson."

Niall's smile spreads as slow as the flush across her cheeks, looking a bit like she can't believe her luck, or at least that's how Louis is feeling. "There's no lesson," she says on that slow grin. "I'm sure it was his fault."

Louis shakes her head, looking up at the sky and the sun beating down on them. "Still," she murmurs. Niall shifts onto her back beside her, looking up too, and Louis can feel the space between them like it's pressing up against her. It's been ten seconds since she did her bit about liking girls, and part of her already feels stupid not to be kissing Niall right here on the beach.

But another part thinks that would cheapen this, like it's worth more than just kissing two days after meeting. That part worries Louis, a bit, but she feels protective of it too. Of them. So she just sits with Niall in silence, letting it sink in like the sun on their skin.

*

“Wanna meet me at the library in, like, an hour?” Niall asks, as the balance in the air tips in favor of the cool wind rather than the sun and it's time to call it a day at the beach.

“Why?”

“So I can lend you _Philosopher's Stone_ ,” Niall says, grinning. “I was serious about that. I work there, a few days a week. Then nights over at the Sunroom, on Third Street.”

Louis opens her mouth, realizes she's about to make a 'sexy librarian' comment, and closes it again, blinking. Niall laughs.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” Louis says, shaking a smile onto her face and leaning down to unlock her bike. “Do I get a library card and all? Never had one of those before.”

Niall beams at her.

The library is in a little turret-shaped building made of round stones, five blocks from the surf shop. There's a rare _no shirt, no shoes, no service_ on the whitewashed door when Louis pulls up on her bike, so she slips her vest over her head before she goes in. 

It's air-conditioned inside, smells like paper, warm wood, old carpet. Niall's sitting behind the front desk scanning the barcodes on a stack of large-print mystery novels. She smiles when she sees Louis. 

“There you are.” She produces the first Harry Potter book from under the counter. “All ready for you, unless you wanna browse a bit.”

“Think I'm good with this for now,” Louis says. “Don't wanna hurt myself, you know.”

“Course.” Niall's serious nodding makes Louis laugh, the sound barking out loud in the quiet space. There's a few people at computers who don't look up, and a little kid snoozing on a bean bag chair in the kids' section.

“I should bring my sisters here,” Louis says, looking up at the skylight in the peaked wooden roof two stories up, the ringed balcony of the upper floor lined with more shelves. “I wonder if they've been. You get a lot of Tomlinsons in?”

Niall sticks her tongue between her lips as she types it in and scrolls through her database. “I've got a Johannah Deakin,” she says. “That's your mam, innit? I've seen her around. She looks just like you.”

“Yeah. Very good, you are.”

“Small towns,” Niall says, shrugging. She looks funny, changed in Bermuda-length jean shorts and a clean white tee with a faded Clip-Art logo from some town parade six years ago on the front, her hair still salty from the beach.

“Are you wearing trainers?” Louis asks, peering over the counter. Niall laughs.

“Don't judge me, I have to,” she says, pulling her knees in on her stool. “You saw the sign.”

“I did. Serious shit,.”

“Damn right,” Niall says mildly. “Okay, I just need to get you a card. Fill this out.” She hands Louis a clipboard.

“Kinda hoping this is a sneaky way for you to get my number,” Louis mumbles when she hands it back, glancing up at Niall through her lashes. Niall blinks for a moment, startled. She looks down at the sign-up form.

“I hadn't thought of that,” she says. “Can I just ask you for it instead of stealing it off here? Or would you rather we... do all that?”

Louis laughs. “Caught me,” she says. “Here. I'll text you.” She hands Niall her phone to put her number in.

“So you've just got my number now,” Niall says as she types, smiling to herself. “I see your game, Lou. I see right through you.”

Louis just stands there, rocking on the balls of her feet, pleasantly warm inside though her skin is pimpling up in the air conditioning. Niall hands her the phone back. She's put a sunshine emoji and a surfboarder next to her name in Louis' contacts.

“So you should come by the bar tonight if you like,” she says. “You need to get out of the house.”

“Thought I was supposed to be reading,” Louis says, taking the Harry Potter book from Niall once she's scanned it along with Louis' new library card.

“Well, read the first chapter, then,” Niall says, leaning over the counter to smile at Louis, practically twinkling, “and then you can tell me what you think.”

Louis grins. “Yes ma'am. I'll see you tonight.”

Niall swivels on her stool to wave Louis goodbye all the way out the door.

*

The twins are doing a puzzle on the living room floor when she gets home, Fizz curled up in the rocker playing Candy Crush with the babies lying on her. Lottie's probably at her lifeguard job. 

“Is Dan about?” Louis asks, because she knows her mum would want her to. Jay's in the little kitchen, chopping tomatoes.

“He's got a work thing in London all this week. Back at the weekend,” Jay says. “You staying for dinner, Lou? I'm making macaroni.”

“With tomatoes?”

“It's good for you, love.”

“I'm sure it is,” Louis says. “Um – but I'm going out, I guess.”

Everyone looks up. “Are you?” Jay asks.

“Yes, God, would you stop acting so surprised, all of you?”

Fizzie smirks behind her phone.

“You've just been in a lot, babe,” Jay says. “Where are you going? You got friends in town?”

“I – yeah,” Louis says, because saying she met someone would invite questions, not least of all about gender, and she's not so ready to navigate all that again. It's not that they don't know she's bi, it's just that it'll probably be weird for them to swing back to it so quick after Zayn. And – her and Niall aren't even – it's not even a thing yet. “Whatever,” Louis says, flustered.

“I haven't said anything, Louis.”

“Yeah, no, I'm going out,” she says again. “Save me some, will you? Love you.” She leans over the breakfast bar to give her mum a kiss on the cheek. “See you later.”

“Bye, then,” Jay calls, perplexed, while Louis takes her leave onto the back porch and then into the little yard.

She rolls a spliff and clears the crab apples out of the hammock, where they've fallen from their tree. Then she curls up, heavy and tired with the sun and the salt on her skin, and opens _Philosopher's Stone._

It's not until she's at the giant banging down the door of the hut on the rock that she notices she's losing light. She looks up, and realizes she hasn't done so since she started reading – the sun is setting, lights aglow inside the cottage. She looks down at the book in her hands.

“Shit,” she whispers, and she's thinking of Niall.

*

Louis showers that night and puts on a bit of makeup, not too much, opts for a vest and jeans rather than a dress, doesn't want to look like she's trying too hard. She chucks the Harry Potter book in the basket of her bike along with her phone and wallet – knows Niall will have bar to tend, won't be able to spend all her time fielding Louis' meager chat-up lines.

But bless her, Niall's saved Louis a stool at the end of the bar when she walks into the Sunroom, peering around. It looks like any good pub, lots of warm dark wood and the music just a shade too loud, life preservers and shadowboxes full of shells and dried-out sea stars hanging on the walls. Louis waves as Niall beckons her over, laughing.

“You look nice.” Niall reaches over the bar and wraps a hand around Louis' braid, tugging it over one shoulder with a loose fist. Louis preens a bit under the attention, leaning into it.

“And are you wearing a Goldschlager shirt?” she asks. Niall snorts.

“Yeah, they make us do it,” she says. “We get promotional shit. I'll pour you a shot if you like, it's a special tonight.”

Louis raises an eyebrow. “Yeah, you know what? Fuck it. I'm on vacation.”

“That's the spirit!” Niall says. A few patrons look around and clap. “I'll do one with you later,” Niall murmurs, leaning over again as she hands Louis her shot. “Just gotta sneak it out back.”

“Ta,” Louis says. She inhales and knocks the shot back, feeling the cinnamon burn in her throat. “God, that is _awful_ ,” she coughs. “Alright, do you have anything real to drink? Can I get something in a pint glass?”

Niall pours her a Stella and Louis orders a burger, too, the weird avocado-Swiss one at Niall's insistence that it's amazing, and Louis reads Harry Potter while she eats and listens to Niall's little voice flitting around the room in the background. 

As she sits there, she feels an abrupt, unexpected sense of home. It's the first time all summer she's been really comfortable here. Settled, like she could stay, or something. As though it isn't just a miserable break from reality – as though it's just part of normalcy.

It should make her happy, but it makes her so sad instead, suddenly and incorrigibly. She takes the last gulp of her beer and it catches in her throat.

Niall's there before Louis can school the crestfallen confusion from her face. “You need another beer?” she asks. “I'm sorry it's so busy, I thought I was gonna have more time – are you alright, Lou?”

“Yeah,” Louis says bracingly, waving a hand. “Yeah. Don't worry about it. I can wait.” She forces a smile that becomes genuine after a second, and Niall relaxes.

“Good.” She pulls another Stella from the tap and slides it down to Louis.

“Niall, have the rest of my chips,” Louis says. Niall looks up as Louis pushes the remnants of her dinner across the bar and picks up the beer. “Can I take this to have a smoke?”

“Sure. Just out there.”

Louis winds up smoking one cigarette and moving onto the second, drinking her beer and sitting on one of the big overturned net-spools in the middle of the deck that serves as a table, looking out at the ocean. It's dark now, but there's light from behind her, blocking out the stars, and muffled music mixing with the waves.

The door opens, and Louis knows without looking around that the light footsteps approaching belong to Niall.

“Brought us shots,” Niall says, in the least shots-like voice imaginable – soft and gentle, easing into Louis' space. “Scoot.” She squeezes in next to her, hands her something sticky and yellow. “Pineapple and tequila,” she says, when Louis looks up. “Deadly, but it's just half a shot, really, so...”

“Half-deadly,” Louis says. “Cheers.”

“Aw, cheers _to_ something,” Niall says as she lifts her shot. Her eyes are steady on Louis' face, almost unnerving. Louis has to look away.

“I'm shit for toasts. You do it.”

“Alright.” Niall shakes her hair out of her face. “To – summer, and Harry Potter, and new friends, and free shots,” she declares. Louis laughs, and Niall winks at her. “I've got you,” she says. “Go 'head.”

Louis gets hers down in one gulp – Niall's takes her two – and they sit there in silence catching their breath, shoulders brushing.

“D'you have to get back,” Louis says quietly, looking at the ocean. Niall shrugs.

“Not really,” she says. “Unless you need -- space, or whatever.”

“No, no,” Louis says. “Stay.”

She feels Niall's eyes on the side of her face, but she can't look at her, doesn't know how to give voice to this. That this place feeling normal scares her because it means everything that brought her to this point was normal too, and that it's over. That having Niall around scares her a little, too. 

Niall stands eventually, puts her arm around Louis' shoulders and gives her a squeeze. “C'mon,” she says. “Tell me how the book's going.”

Louis smiles, shivers, shakes herself. She follows Niall back into the bar.

The Harry Potter conversation proves short, because Niall can't stop yelling and clapping her hands over her mouth as she tries to hold back spoilers and Louis is a very slow reader who probably should have finished the first book already in the time she's had it, but oh well. She hangs around anyway, watching Niall work and talk with other locals, introducing a few to Louis and sneaking her little bowls of pub mix and change for the jukebox.

Louis has been teetering on the edge of sad drunk for a couple of hours now. She hadn't even meant to get drunk tonight – hasn't gotten drunk except by herself since she's been here, and those have never been happy times. She's not sure what she'd set out to do, really – go home with Niall, maybe, or – she doesn't know. But the bar doesn't close for another two hours, and Louis is fading. 

“Nialler,” she says, raising her book to get her attention. She's been reading the same page of the chapter about the Hogwarts Express for 15 minutes. Niall slides herself and the rag she's cleaning the bar with down to Louis. “I'll cash out with you, love,” she says, reaching absently for Niall's hand and turning it over in her palm.

Niall lets her tangle their fingers together, bemused. “You giving up on me?”

"Yeah," Louis sighs. “For tonight." She looks up at Niall's face, and it grounds her like nothing else. There's a moment of stillness in that, and then it makes her stomach flip. “Head's all over the place,” she says. “Not your fault. Let's go out sometime when you're not working, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Niall says. “That'd be nice, Lou.”

She lets Louis pay for the burger and the beers, not the shots, flashes a _two seconds_ sign at her manager and walks Louis out. It's dead quiet on the sidewalk, a cool blue-black night, no one about. Louis is the only person awake this late who hasn't committed to the bar until last call. 

“You're okay, right?” Niall says, watching Louis unlock her bike with clumsy fingers. “How far's your house?”

“I'll be fine,” Louis says. “It's, like, five minutes. Drunk biking's my specialty. And there's no cars here anyway.”

“City girl,” Niall says, reaching uncertainly to tuck a piece of Louis' braid into place.

God, Louis thinks, and she hasn't decided what she's doing yet when she leans in toward Niall. Her lips land on her cheek. Warm skin, the boozy, sweet-salt smell of her.

Niall's staring at her when she pulls back, flushed, lips parted. “That it, then?” she asks, so quiet Louis almost doesn't hear. She looks edible. Louis has to go before she gets weird.

“For now,” she says. She waffles in the edge of Niall's space for a moment longer still, until Niall shakes her head, laughing, and pulls Louis into a hug. It's a really, really good hug, like Harry's hugs, the line of their bodies fitted together. Niall's chin tucks over Louis' shoulder, her arms tight around her back.

“Text me when you get home,” she says. “I'll see you soon.”

“Bye, friend,” Louis sing-songs. Niall grins.

“Bye, Lou.” She watches her take off standing on her bike until she's around the corner.

*

Louis wakes up shivering in the hammock an indeterminate amount of time later, feeling rotten, that stupid nothing-space between drunk and sober. She's got her book curled into her body, and she's been crying, her eyes crusty and the mascara sticking her lashes together. She remembers that, falling asleep crying, remembers the whole night, but the feelings are dimmer now. Remembers thinking of calling Harry and deciding not to, wallowing instead.

She doesn't know what her fucking problem is. That this good thing is making her feel fucked up all over again. It's not just moving on from Zayn, but from the way she lived the past two years of her life – the thought that she could have been down here in this safe ocean space all the time if she hadn't wanted to dick around with him in the city every summer, and just... all of it. Missing parts of herself she's forgotten.

And she knows she's not being fair to herself. It's just so weird and sad, change like this, the prospect of going back and starting the rest of her life over. She hates that he took up so much space. That she let him do that. That she's still letting him, even after he disrespected them like that, ruined it, let her go. 

She lies out there awake until the sun starts to come up, then reads a bit of Harry Potter when she has enough light. Has to double back because she'd tried to read most of the King's Cross chapter while drunk. It settles her, and she feels fully sober by the time they get to Hogwarts, her breathing even and her head clearing out. She imagines being in one of those little boats on the lake looking up at that castle. Magic in her fingers. She goes inside to sleep the rest of it off.

*

Niall doesn't text the next day, and it's well enough because the shop is slammed, the start of a big weekend, apparently. Louis is dead on her feet when she gets home, mind blank. She stands in front of the fridge eating leftover mac and cheese out of the Tupperware in front of the fridge until her mum comes in and tells her off.

It's not until she's reading in bed, the comforter around her waist and everyone sleeping except Lottie, texting in the bottom bunk, that her phone lights up on the mattress beside her.

_Where are you in the book??_

She smiles. Lottie glances over at her and they glare back and forth, daring the other to ask a question, until Lottie gives up and goes back to her own conversation.

_He's gonna duel malfoy at midnight !! ooOooOOoohh_

The fact that these are the first real texts they've exchanged is making Louis laugh to herself when Niall texts back.

_love that bit!!! omg I can't wait for you to read the other books !_

Louis sends her the snake emoji and the magic sparkles, waits.

 _Glad you got home safe last night,_ Niall says. _You didn't text so I assumed you were dead_

It startles a guilty laugh out of Louis, quickly stifled.

“Who're you texting?” Lottie hisses at her.

“Your boyfriend,” Louis hisses back, sticking her tongue out. Lottie rolls her eyes.

 _Not dead just sleeping_ , Louis says. _Fell asleep in the hammock_

_sounds kind of nice :)_

_Yeah, rope burn is a bitch tho_

_hahhahaha well nice in theory anyway_

Louis chews on her lip for a moment, looks at the sun and surfer in Niall's name in her phone.

 _Sorry I didn't text_ , she sends. _And sorry if I was weird last night_

_You weren't !! I get it... A lot on your mind_

_Yeah.. thanks for the shots tho :) It was nice to go out_

_Anytime mate_ , Niall says, then, _I've got the day off tmrw. What ya doing_

_ahh boooo. Ive got a full day at the shop again. Today was MAD_

_aw ok ! Next time_

Louis sighs, looks up at the ceiling. Lottie's gone to sleep and Louis didn't even notice. It's crazy, how much Niall steals all her attention when she least expects it.

 _You going to sleep?_ Niall asks.

_Thinkin about it. Might read this DUEL first. hbu_

_I've got a baby on me! My brothers here w my nephew_

She sends a picture a moment later, a little blond toddler sprawled against her chest in a soft-lit room. Niall's face peeks over his shoulder, her hair soft and clean, eyes smiling. Louis' heart does a ridiculous somersault.

 _omg... so cute_ , she sends, meaning the both of them, of course, hoping Niall will work it out.

Niall sends the blushy smiley face, then, _night Lou_ , with a blue heart.

“God,” Louis whispers. _Gnight baby (and to ur nephew too) x_

She plugs her phone in and turns it face-down so she can feel like she had the last word, wide awake now. It takes three more chapters to fall asleep.

*

Niall texts her asking for a coffee order in the morning and shows up 20 minutes later with a giant sweating iced latte in each hand. The shop is busy again and Louis is five places at once, frazzled, but a brief wave of calm washes over her when she sees Niall come through the door.

“Oh my god, you're a saint,” she says, accepting her coffee. “What do I owe you?”

“Shut up,” Niall says happily, pulling Louis into a one-armed hug. “Need any help around here? You weren't kidding about being busy, wow.”

“I know,” Louis says. “But I don't wanna put you to work, don't be stupid.”

“I made you watch me bartend for four hours the other night,” Niall points out. “I could do with stacking a few surfboards. Just point me.”

They go back and forth a few more times until deflecting Niall becomes more of a task than giving her one of her own, so Louis has her sort the wetsuits into order by size. Niall seems to enjoy it, the little weirdo. Chirps that she likes systems, organizing things. She even starts answering customers' questions. Louis watches out of the corner of her eye, listening to Niall chat happily with people she knows and tourists she doesn't and feeling completely fucked.

She takes a smoke break when the rush dies down and phones Harry.

“I'm completely fucked,” she tells him.

“In general, or?”

“Over this _girl_ ,” Louis hisses, staring inadvertent daggers at a passing family.

“What's her name, then?”

“Niall,” Louis says. “She's Irish and her mum lives here and she's blonde and gorgeous and she's got me reading Harry Potter and she sent me a selfie of her holding a baby.”

“Oh, shit.”

“I know.”

“That's not good.”

“I know.”

“Just a random baby, or?”

“Her nephew, Haz, that's not the point.”

“Where are you, Lou? Why're you so stressed out?”

“I'm at work. She's inside. I don't know, she's – helping a customer.”

“Do you work with her?” he asks, alarmed.

“No, she's just... helping. I, um. I sat at the bar where she works for, like, ever the other night and she didn't have as much time for me as she wanted, I guess, so she's making up to me.”

“Wow,” Harry says. “And she's gay, I assume?”

“Or something. She's mentioned an ex-girlfriend.”

“Good enough. So what's the issue?”

“I dunno,” Louis says, taking a nervous drag of her cigarette, blowing the smoke out over her shoulder as she looks in through the window. Niall waves and Louis waves back, hopeless. “Maybe it's a lot too soon, or something? I just.... I'm being stupid, Harry, I don't know at all.”

“And you don't know what you're doing,” Harry says. “Like, at the end of the summer.”

“Right. Thanks.”

“So – just don't think about it, Lou,” he says. “What else can you do? Just let it, like, do what it wants to, y'know?”

She sighs, stubbing her cigarette out under her flip-flop. “Yeah. I guess. I should probably get back. What time is it there? Shit, it's really late, innit? What're you doing?”

“No worries, mate, I'm out.”

“Are you drunk?”

“No,” he says, indignant, which means yes.

“Alright, idiot,” she says. “Love you. I'll ring you later.”

“Go get 'em, tiger,” he says. She hangs up on him.

“Everything okay?” Niall asks when she comes back in.

“Yeah,” Louis says, assuming her place behind the register. “My mate in Los Angeles, he's … well, he's in Los Angeles, I suppose.”

Niall laughs. “Fair enough. Hey, my brother wants me to come hang out at the beach. You okay here on your own?”

“Yeah,” Louis laughs. “You don't even work here, love, honestly.”

Niall shrugs. “I like it. Always loved this shop. Though it's a bit more fun now.” She smirks a bit at Louis. Flirting is an adorably awkward look on her, sly and silly and just ill-fitted enough to be noticeable.

“Well, go on,” Louis says. “Text me later.”

“I will.” Niall stops in her space as she passes the register, like she wants to lean over and kiss Louis' cheek, or Louis could be projecting, but then she's going, waving bye.

Louis rattles the dregs of her iced coffee around with the straw, watching Niall stroll down the street. Her next customer has to pointedly ring the bell like an arsehole to get her attention, and the rest of the afternoon passes in blurred spans of work and texting Niall about Harry Potter, until it's another day gone.

*

Louis wastes a week like that, daydreaming at the shop until Niall shows up with a new treat from the coffeeshop at midday, then bringing Niall a shell or a rock or some little thing she found in the supply closet when she visits her at the bar at night. She keeps reading, cries at the bit where Harry sees his parents in the mirror of Erised and has to call Niall about it a whimpering mess, asking if the whole series is going to hurt her like this, and Niall tells her a grave yes and they commiserate across the bar later with beers in Harry's honor.

She tells Niall about her real-life Harry, too, and Liam, who facetimes her day-drunk from Wolverhampton when they're out at the beach one afternoon and so Niall gets to meet him, blushing and laughing as Louis hastily shuts down his sloppy ramblings about _she's cute, Louis, where'd you pick that one up?_ Niall makes an angel in the sand and tells Louis stories about running silly in Dublin and London sometimes too with her mates when she's not here, Laura and Amy and Shanon and Eoghan and Bressie and all her cousins.

Louis is lying there listening with Chamber of Secrets splayed across her face to shade her eyes. 

"So where's home, really?" she asks, tasting paper as she talks. "Here or there?"

Niall's quiet for a while. "There, I guess. 'S where I was born. And I take classes there during the year. Trying to transfer my credits to school in the city eventually."

"Dublin or London? What're you studying?"

"I'm doing gender and sociology stuff, mostly. I wanna go get my library degree sometime down the line, but it's, like, a master's."

"Really?" 

"Yeah, it's cool. It's more like a research thing. I just -- I like learning." She shrugs, like this isn't the cutest thing Louis has ever heard. 

"Nerd," Louis says, but she can't keep it from sounding fond, and Niall laughs.

"Yeah, yeah. And as for place -- either, I guess. I dunno. I'm so split up between 'em that I'd be sad to put down roots somewhere. As though I wouldn't be able to get to the other place. It's weird. Like, there's _nothing_ here, and there's hardly anything at home either, in the Gar. But -- I love it. Both of 'em. The cities are just for fun."

Louis hums. She's half-asleep and she loves listening to Niall talk, loves feeling the sun on her skin. Loves this place, too, more every day.

"I think I'm a country girl at heart," Niall muses. Louis can hear her smiling. Her voice is pointing up at the sky. "I like that it's kind of a simple place, you know? Having options for stuff to do is always nice, like, but you wind up picking the same places every night anyway once you've found your favorites. Favorite pub, favorite beach. Favorite summer jobs."

"Did you ever have friends here?"

"Not many who stayed since I was a kid. Just people like you, these days," Niall says. Something selfish in Louis twinges at that, and she slides the book off her overheated face, squints sideways at Niall.

"How d'you mean?"

"People who aren't staying," Niall says. The spite Louis feels in the words is probably imagined -- Niall's surely used to this by now, like she's saying, making friends and losing them as people come and go around her and she stays behind.

"So I'm just another --"

"No," Niall says, so soft and firm that it shuts down whatever petulant bullshit was going to come out of Louis' mouth before she can even formulate it. "No, you're…"

And she thinks about it for so long that Louis only realizes she's holding her breath when her chest starts to hurt. She lets it out as gently as she can, hoping Niall hasn't caught onto her being a lunatic.

"You're you," Niall says, shrugging and smiling down at the sand between them.

"I'm sad I never came down before this," Louis says, unbidden. "I always spent my summers in London since my mum's been here. I could've... "

"Lou," Niall interrupts, still gentle. Her face has a funny twist to it as she meets Louis' eyes. "You think too much about stuff you can't change, y'know? You're here now. That's something. That's better than nothing, innit."

"Yeah." Louis swallows. "I'm hot," she announces. "Fancy another swim?"

"In a minute," Niall says. She sits up, watching Louis stand and shimmy the sand off her legs. "I'll catch up."

"Suit yourself," Louis says, and she takes off across the beach at a run, throwing a grin back at Niall, relishing the wind blowing through her hair and the give of the sand beneath her feet to distract her from everything else. Gasps when she hits the ocean and dives in without looking back again, feeling Niall's presence behind her like an anchor, waiting to pull her into shore when the tide turns.

*

And then it's mid-August and Louis has classes starting four weeks from now, and she still hasn't figured out what to do about anything. She registers on a Thursday and feels a terrible clotting anxiety about it when she's finished. But it's too early in California for her to call Harry and Liam goes to voicemail, and she's stuck at home babysitting so she can't go find Niall.

 _SOS need life advice/someone to plan my life for me thank u_ , she texts her, chewing on her lip and bouncing Dottie on her knee.

_U wanna meet somewhere?? Im on 3 hr break between shifts doin fuck all_

_unfortunately I'm responsible for many babies atm,_ Louis replies. _Want to come here ??_

Niall sends her a bunch of happy faces and the little emoji for home. _address ?_

Louis hears the now-familiar rattle of an old Fiat a half-hour later, then Niall pushes the squeaky picket gate open, the bright blue of her chipped manicure standing out against the whitewash. Louis is lying in the grass, letting Daisy and Phoebe draw on her while Lottie gives the babies a bottle on the screened-in porch. It's Fizz who's out at the pool this time – she's a lifeguard-in-training.

“Look at all these girls,” Niall says, grinning ear to ear. “A whole family of girls, this is ridiculous.”

“Except one,” Lottie pipes up from behind the screen. “The littlest boy in the world.”

“Oh my god.” Niall presses herself to the screen to look. “Hi, I'm Niall.”

“Hi,” Lottie says, amused. “Assuming you're friends with Lou, or should I call the police?”

“I'll let you know if that becomes necessary, Lottie,” Louis says, shaking off her sisters and climbing to her feet. “Hey,” she says, smiling in a way that'll be embarrassing if Lottie's paying any attention. Niall looks her over. Louis is up to her ankles in uncut grass, marker all over her tanned skin, up her thighs and over her stomach in her crop top and down her arms and on her face. It had been kind of therapeutic to just lie there letting the twins have at it.

“Good look for you,” Niall says. “You should consider making some of that permanent. I think these two have a future in tattoo artistry, d'you think, girls?”

Phoebe giggles. Daisy is giving Niall an appraising sort of look, and then she holds out a fistful of markers.

“You wanna have a go?” she asks. Niall laughs.

“Do I ever,” she says. “Have a seat, Miss Tomlinson.”

Louis plops obediently down in the grass where she's standing, and Niall comes around behind her, sits too and spreads her legs on either side of Louis' hips until they're snug together. She brushes Louis' hair forward over her shoulder, and Louis is holding extremely still, partially because she doesn't want to have a massive gay breakdown in front of all her little sisters but even more because she doesn't want to shake Niall off.

“Here we go,” Niall murmurs, her breath close on the back of Louis' neck. The marker is blunt and cool, tracing Louis' top vertebra, down three rungs to the top of her shirt. Niall skims her fingers over the warm skin there, drawing what feels like a wavy line back up.

“What're you drawing?” Phoebe asks. The girls crowd around to see.

“It's a snake,” Niall says. “Just a little one, we don't have a lot of room, see.”

“You could've drawn it sideways,” Daisy points out.

“Yeah, but look, when she moves, it'll get longer. Bend down, Lou.” Niall pushes at the base of Louis' skull with gentle fingers, and Louis lets her breath out in a quiet gasp as she leans forward, helpless. “See?” she hears Niall saying, as if from a great distance. “It stretches.”

“Cool,” the twins say together. “I want one. Do one on me, Fee.”

They occupy themselves after that, and Louis would rather all of them have to scrub off in the bathtub later than have them bother her any longer, now that Niall's here. She plants her hands on either side of Niall's thighs, turns in the bracket of them to look at her, close.

“A snake, eh?”

Niall nods, leaning back on her elbows to look up at Louis, cool as anything. It's such an inviting pose. Louis wants nothing more than to turn all the way over and climb on top of her, lie down against her, their bodies stretched out in the grass.

Instead she stands up. “Come lie in the hammock with me, Picasso,” she says, tying her hair up in a knot to let the marker on her skin dry out.

Louis is expecting to leave space between them, but Niall stretches out against her side easy as anything. She gives Louis a look up through her lashes, like, _is this okay?_ and Louis just lets it happen like it doesn't matter, both of them flushed and a little cautious. It's not exactly easy not to crowd together in a hammock, anyway. Their arms and thighs are pressed together, Niall's hair tickling Louis' skin. It's almost as good as the thought of lying on her on the ground. Louis wrestles her phone out of her pocket and pulls up her new class schedule.

“I had to register today,” she says. “I'm doing all these requirements that I was supposed to have done in my first year, 'cause I'm thinking of changing programs but I haven't decided yet so this is all I had left.”

“What are you changing from?”

“I was in history before but I hated it,” Louis says. “I just declared it because I needed something. I wanted to go to uni, like – you know. It's about more than just studying, right? I didn't really know what I wanted out of it. Just to be a better writer and get a degree, I guess. Seems like you're supposed to have one these days.”

“I know that feeling,” Niall murmurs. Louis can feel her breath against her shoulder, and she shrugs down into the hammock, evening them out. “So what are you thinking you'll do instead?”

“I was thinking about journalism,” Louis says. “I wanna, like, do a column in the student newspaper and... I don't know. I was thinking about writing music reviews. I think I'd like that. I'm good at writing about music.”

“That is so fucking cool, Lou,” Niall says. “Oh, shit, sorry. I mean --”

“It's okay,” Louis laughs. The girls haven't even looked up. “I'm their big sister, you think they haven't heard that all before?”

Niall relaxes. “Same for me and Greg,” she says absently. She takes Louis' phone, clicks around the classes, reading descriptions. “So – you were having some kind of crisis?” she asks. “It's fine if you just wanted to hang out, I mean, I'm not complaining --”

“Shut up,” Louis says, squirming. “Nah – I'm just kind of stressed about going back. Like, one of the reasons I'm thinking of switching out of history is 'cause it's in the school where I met... my ex.” It's the first time she's said the word out loud, and it lands like cardboard, no purchase on reality.

“Ah.”

“And it's a big city, but, like, not that big a campus, and...”

“Was it a bad breakup?” Niall asks. “You were together a long time, or...?” She's fishing, trying things out so Louis doesn't have to say the words herself, but she does anyway.

“Two years,” Louis says. “He cheated, and I caught him.”

“Oh, God.”

“I just... it's not as much about him as it is about me, d'you know what I mean? Like, he made me look and feel stupid. And -- like I'd just wasted all that time." 

“I get it,” Niall says. “You don't have to.”

"I feel like I didn't like myself with him anymore, and I didn't even know," Louis murmurs. "Like I woke up after two years of it and I've had to completely start over."

She looks at Niall then, and Niall's watching her like she understands. Louis doesn't know if it's because she's had the same thing happen to her, or if she's just a good listener, but either way it helps so much.

“You should go back if you want to,” Niall says after a while. “If you feel ready, for you. Forget him. He's out of the picture, yeah? Don't let him rule your life from, like.” She waves a hand. “Beyond the grave, mate.”

“Damn,” Louis mumbles. “Yeah, I know. Everyone keeps telling me, Harry and Liam, I just.”

“Easier said than done,” Niall says, looking up at her. And the most ridiculous thing is that Louis wants so, so badly to kiss her then. She would do if her sisters weren't there. It feels like the perfect moment for it, and the fact that Louis' perfect moment is when Niall's talking her down from obsessing over her cheating ex says something bloody stupid about Louis' state of mind.

She shifts away from Niall, just a little, sees Niall's face flicker with it, and then she feels so bad that she dislodges a marker-covered arm from between them. “C'mere, then, I owe you a cuddle for that.” Niall's face smooths again just as quickly, and she lets Louis' put an arm around her, curls into her. Louis can feel Lottie eyeing them from the porch.

“The other thing is I kind of want to stay,” Louis says. “Here, I mean.”

“Nah, you don't,” Niall laughs. “This place is fucking dead in the off-season. I'll be long gone by the time it gets cold. Then what'll you do.”

“Fair point.” That makes Niall smile. “Alright, enough life coaching. I've got _Chamber of Secrets_ 'round here somewhere.” She roots around under the hammock, tipping the two of them to the side in the process. They've nearly fallen out twice and Niall's practically in her lap by the time she comes up with the book.

“You know you're probably getting marker all over you,” she notes. Niall shrugs.

“Don't mind,” she says. “They can do me next if they like.”

But the twins are occupied with sketchbooks now, so Louis finds her place in the book and hands it, open, to Niall. “Wanna read to me, library girl?”

Niall's eyebrows lift, and a laugh shivers out of her. She shakes her head. “Yeah. Give it here.”

She clears her throat. "I'm not doing any voices," she says, and before Louis can reply, probably before she can lose her nerve, she starts. "' _Ron!_ ' breathed Harry, creeping to the window and pushing it up so they could talk through the bars" she says, and she's actually doing it, acting and everything, so that Louis has to stifle a giggle behind her hand. Niall ignores her. "'Ron, how did you -- what the --'"

"Oh my god, Niall, you don't have to, I take it back," Louis says. Niall's face has flamed up, but she shakes her head, staring resolutely at the book.

"I want to. It's good for you," she says, and goes on before Louis can interject: "'Harry's mouth fell open as the full impact of what he was seeing hit him. Ron was leaning out of the back window of an old turquoise car, which was parked in _midair_ …'"

After the initial silliness wears off, it's easier to just listen to her, and eventually Louis looks away from the side of Niall's blushing face and up at the branches of the crabapple tree above them, the blue sky beyond that. She hears a rustling in the grass a couple of minutes later and looks around, as Niall reads about them ripping the bars off Harry's window, and _Petunia, he's getting away!_ The twins have come over to sit in the grass by the hammock, faces upturned, listening.

"Have you two read this book?" Louis asks. 

"Duh," Phoebe says primly. 

"I've only read the first four. Mum made me stop when somebody died."

"Who dies?!" Louis asks, aghast. 

"Shh," Niall says, looking around. "Don't tell her. She hasn't read them before." 

The twins give Louis a smug look. "Well, keep going, then," she says to Niall, disgruntled. And Niall does: to the Burrow, to Mrs. Weasley, the chickens and the gnomes in the garden and Ginny's terrified embarrassment when she sees Harry. Louis feels a bit of fear inside her as she lies there with Niall still pressed to her side, her arm around her shoulders, listening to the lilt of her voice telling this story. In so much farther over her head than she'd meant to be and it's only been a few weeks. 

Niall's voice starts to go husky as the afternoon wanes and the light gets low. Even Lottie's come out to listen once the twins are down down for a nap, lying on the bench of the backyard picnic table with the baby monitor balanced on her chest. Louis smiles when Harry and Ron play Quidditch in the field by the house, like they're having a kick-about. Laughs as Harry fucks up the Floo Powder and then quickly falls silent as shit gets stressful in Borgin & Burkes. Then onto Flourish & Blotts, and the summer fading. Louis is almost as in love with these books as she is with the girl who's reading them to her. 

"Alright," she says softly, when Niall finishes Chapter 4 and stops for a moment, licking her lips. 

"Can she do the whole thing, Lou?" Fee asks. "D'you live here, Niall?"

"Yeah, I do," Niall says. "But it's Lou who needs to read it -- maybe she'll read to you tonight, eh?" 

"Oh, maybe I will." Louis grins as she looks down at Niall. "D'you have to go," she says, softer, and she means it to sound normal but it comes out like stay. 

"Told my mam I'd do dinner before I went to work," Niall says in kind, gazing up at Louis. Lottie calls the twins in to have a bath, as if from a great distance. She's a good wingman when she needs to be. Louis feels like she and Niall are alone in the world long before the backyard's empty of her sisters. 

"Thanks for coming 'round," Louis says. She should sit up, disentangle from Niall before all this dizzy gravity overpowers her and she does something stupid without thinking it through, but she can't. "Saved my day."

Niall smiles big, top lip first, like Louis' learned she does when she's really pleased. Her cheeks are red, eyes crinkling up, like the longer she looks at Louis the less she can contain it. Louis laughs, can't help herself. "Alright," she says. "Alright." 

She sits up. 

Niall sighs behind her, swings her legs over the opposite side of the hammock. "Good move," Louis says. "I usually dump the last person left in here. Family tradition." 

"Then I better make my getaway," Niall says. There are smears of color up and down her arms and her cheek from the marker on Louis' skin. She stands, and Louis has to hop to her feet quick too so the hammock doesn't flip out from behind her with the weight shift. 

"You'll be okay," Niall says, once she's in front of Louis again, feet rustling in the grass. "You're stronger than you think." 

Louis' mouth ducks. "Thanks, Niall." And she wants to say something back, something for Niall, too. Niall's nothing but supportive, takes so little for herself. Louis wants to tell her she'd stay, for no reason other than her. That she doesn't want to be just another person who barged into Niall's life without warning and receded just as quick, without trying to dig in at all. Like a wave you thought was going to make it farther up the shore. 

As Louis wrestles with this, Niall's mouth quirks, and she reaches for Louis' hand, wraps her fingers around it and leans in to kiss her on the cheek. She's flushed when she steps back again, and so's Louis, but they just look at each other for a moment, the air gone still. 

"Reckon I'll see you soon," Niall says, with a question in it. 

"I reckon," Louis says in her smallest voice. She puts on a brave smile as Niall goes out the way she came, then pulls her hair out of its knot and shakes a hand through it, staring around the tiny garden. Hears Niall's engine sputter to life and then fade down the street, and then the silence, and the early cicadas. 

*

Louis and her sisters finish _Chamber of Secrets_ that week, and she and Niall get wrapped up in an intense bar debate over Dumbledore's line about it being choices that show who a person is more than abilities, and how Louis doesn't think that's very fair in a series about people who are born with magic and Niall feels she's sort of missing the point but also it's cute that she's so invested. She gives her _Prisoner of Azkaban_ at the library the next day and tells her not to get spooked by this being the last book that isn't a billion pages long, because _it's gonna start to get really good around now, Lou, I promise, oh my god you're gonna meet Lupin, and if you ever get stressed out just call me and I'll take over reading it to you for a while_. Louis spends the ride home daydreaming about cuddling with Niall in one of the beanbag chairs in the library kids' section while Niall reads to her and pets her hair, gets so lost in it that she bikes three blocks past her own house. 

*

Niall texts her while she's reading about horrible Aunt Marge in the rocking chair after dinner, Ernie curled up on her chest.

_You know the fishing pier down on Mason?_

Louis shifts to type around the baby. Yeah why

_What are you doing in sayyyy Half an hour_

_Meeting you there?_

_Ohhh so smart! But yea_

Louis stifles her laugh behind her book. She flicks to the front camera, pulls a face and snaps a picture. _Be there as soon as I put ern and dot to bed_ , she says, sending it along with a pair of baby emoji, some sleeping Zzzs.

 _so cute !!! What the fuck!!!!!!,_ Niall says. _See you in 30._

_Alriiiiiight :)_

*

Louis is out on the pier in 25 minutes, _Prisoner of Azkaban_ and a six-pack of Blue Moon in the basket of her bike. She rolls it over the wood planks, listening to the rhythmic thumps beneath the tires. The sun will set soon. She assumes that's why Niall asked her out here, but Niall's nowhere to be seen.

 _Here !_ she texts, sat on the railing of the pier with her shoes dangling perilously over the water.

 _wtf me too_ , Niall replies.

_??? at the pier?_

A beat, and then she hears Niall call from somewhere nearby, "Louis!" with laughter in her voice. Louis swivels in place; she's alone. 

“Niall?” she asks aloud, feeling crazy.

“Jesus Christ.” Niall's really laughing now. “I'm underneath.”

“Oh my god.” Louis drops to her belly on the warm wood of the pier and sticks her head over the side to look. Niall's lying on a blanket in the sand down there, head thrown back laughing, her tank top rucked up where she's clutching her belly.

“You didn't specify!” Louis says helplessly. She locks her bike to the railing and grabs the beer before climbing over the edge. The toes of her sandals brush the sand and she hangs on her forearms for a second before letting go. 

"Rite of passage," Niall says approvingly. 

"A three-foot jump," Louis says, skidding down the sand to where Niall's laid out. "Daring."

"Kids are bad in this town, what can I say." 

Louis stands over her, surveying. She's fully under the pier with room to spare over her head. A little ways more beyond Niall's feet, the tide is going out, lapping at the nearest wooden strut of it. It's carved up with graffiti, but Louis is too far to make any of it out. She plops down on Niall's blanket and sticks her sweating six-pack in the sand.

"Sometimes I forget you're not a local," Niall says. "Everybody knows this is where you meet when you come down to the pier."

"Oh, you bring a lot of people here?"

Niall tosses her short hair, staring serenely at the ocean. It's secluded down here, at the center of a deserted beach and well off the road, which the pier connects to overhead through a thick stretch of shore trees and scrubby beach foliage. There's a square of sky and horizon visible between the wooden columns in front of them, and more on either side. The sunset is starting to fill the space, pushing cream-orange into the blue from top and bottom. 

Louis pops the caps off two of the beers, hands one to Niall and takes a slug of her own. "It's a nice spot," she grumbles. Niall chuckles. 

"Cheers," she says, tipping her bottle toward Louis, but Louis pulls hers back.

"To what? Gotta cheers to something, I remember someone telling me that once."

"Aww. You've come so far." Niall smiles. "To, um." She looks out at the water again, and it gives Louis a chance to glance her over -- she's in her standard uniform of jean shorts and a white tank. Louis' not sure if she's wearing a bra or not, and it makes her mouth go dry. She focuses on the glow of her perma-sunburn standing out across her chest and the bridge of her nose instead, and her hair, soft and clean. She hasn't been in the water today, then, but there's sand between her toes and up her shins, so she must have put her feet in before Louis got here. 

"To the rest of summer," Niall says finally. "To making the most of it."

"Cheers," Louis murmurs. They knock bottles and drink, and then there's silence, easy but not weightless, like the distance between them on the blanket. Louis thinks she knows why they're here, or at least she knows what she's hoping. 

"So d'you know what you're doing yet?" Niall asks. 

"Huh?"

"Next month."

"Oh. Jesus. No, I mean." Louis swallows, thinks of the dirty grey exhausted clamor of London compared to this, just the quiet warm beach and a beautiful girl and the slow sunset. Summer's endless numbered days. 

"I should probably go back, right," she murmurs.

"Yeah," Niall says softly. 

Louis' mouth twists. "You know I don't want to," she says, and it comes out on a laugh, helpless. Niall shakes her head. 

"You do, though," she says. "You've got everything there. Your friends. Your, like, roots. You've got a whole life waiting for you, Lou."

"Yeah," Louis murmurs. She turns to look at Niall, propped on her arms with her legs stretched out. Louis has known her for maybe 30 days now, 30 days of this immediate, immersive comfort, of Niall giving her space while all along giving her the exact opposite, too. Niall finding her way in and Louis letting her, wanting her there. It means she's wasted about 29 days not having absolutely all of her. "You're here, though." 

Niall scoffs, pink in the cheeks, drinks some more of her beer and then sticks it in the sand. "Eh," she says. "I'm… y'know. I'll be around. Probably be here if you ever come back." 

Louis pushes her beer into the beach beside her, too. Niall's staring at the ocean when she looks back, tension across her shoulders. 

"Niall," Louis says softly, and Niall looks around, and Louis leans in and kisses her. She cups Niall's soft cheek, spreads her fingers along her jaw and feels Niall melt into her, the space between their bodies closing. The ocean is loud in Louis' ears, and Niall's lips are soft and sweet, parting under hers, her hand sliding around the dip of Louis' waist. 

She sighs slow when Louis pulls back, her eyes still shut and their faces close. "Christ," she breathes, "finally."

It makes Louis laugh, the sound blooming up joyfully in her throat. "C'mere," she says, threads a hand into Niall's hair and pulls her in again, still laughing so there's teeth in it, inelegant, perfect. Niall climbs into Louis' lap still kissing her, straddles her waist and holds her face with both hands, turns it slick and hot with her tongue against Louis', nipping at the swell of her bottom lip. 

By now, some people would be in a hurry to finish the kissing and move onto the rest of it, but Louis can tell Niall loves this part, and God, she loves it too -- the sweet weight of her across Louis' hips, the wet clean taste of her mouth. How her whole body responds when Louis rolls her lower lip gently between her teeth. Her hands tighten in Louis' hair, pulling it half out of its ponytail. 

Louis' hands slip behind Niall's hips, beneath the back of her shirt and over the skin there, raising goosebumps as she trails her fingers against it, pushing the fabric up. Niall arches her back a bit, and her tits are nearly pressed to Louis'. She's got such a narrow ribcage, feels petite and pliable between Louis' hands, like Louis could do absolutely anything to her. It makes her shiver hard. 

She breaks the kiss to look up at Niall, at her flushed wet mouth, her cheeks starting to go a hectic red. She pushes her hands up along Niall's ribs, and Niall squirms. 

"Can I take this off, love?" Louis asks. 

"Bit exhibitionist," Niall breathes. "Yeah, yeah. I don't care if you don't."

"I absolutely fucking don't." Louis pulls Niall's top up until Niall lifts her arms, lets Louis slide it off her. She isn't wearing anything underneath, and her nipples are puckered a dusky pink in the evening air. Louis fucking knew. 

"God," she whispers. "You're gonna kill me with this shit."

"Lou," Niall whines, rolls her hips a bit. 

It's been a long time since Louis touched someone else's bare tits. She brings her hands to Niall's slowly, teasing, runs her hands over her warm skin, then leans in to flick her tongue over the peak of a nipple, her eyes dropping shut. Niall hisses, presses closer to Louis, her arms going around Louis' shoulders. Louis lathes her tongue against the nub of it, nips with her teeth, pulling, until Niall gives a little wail, burying her face against Louis' temple, gasping there. Louis switches sides, smooths her spit from Niall's sore skin with her thumb. 

She dips a hand between Niall's legs as she sucks her other nipple into her mouth, presses the heel of her palm to the seam of Niall's shorts and rocks it up gently. Niall's hot under the denim, and she whimpers in Louis' hear, pushes back against her hand and into her mouth until she's just fucking herself between the two sensations, pressure on her clit through her shorts and Louis' lips latched onto her, turning her skin a mottled red. 

"Let me eat you out," Niall pants. Louis looks up, bleary. She'd forgotten this was going anywhere, had forgotten everything but the feel of Niall's skin under her hands and her tongue, cool at her back and hot between them, the sounds she made into Louis' ear bigger than anything. 

"Yeah?" she asks, a little hoarse. 

"Please," Niall says. She kisses Louis' mouth, rocks down slow against her hand again. Louis has one knee cocked to the side under Niall's hips, and she's aching to press her thighs together, aching for anything. "Can I," Niall whispers against Louis' lips. She's actually begging, and Louis can't help but let out a little gasp. 

"Go for it," she says. Niall laughs, breathless, climbs off her. She touches Louis' ribs, pushes at her gently until she lies down and Niall can get between her legs. Louis still has her flip-flops on, and Niall pulls them off her slowly, giggling, ties her short hair back with the band around her wrist, then goes to work on Louis' shorts. 

Louis has been this naked in public exactly twice before, once with Zayn in an alley beside a pub and before that with her college boyfriend in the park between their houses, sneaking out before either of them had a car or absent parents to make hooking up easier. Never with a girl. But it's so much easier to forget what's happening with Niall -- there's a lot Louis loves about sleeping with men, but it's harder to lose yourself in it, takes more work to get off a lot of the time. Now Niall's topless, pulling Louis' shorts and her knickers off her in the middle of the beach before the sun's even down, the two of them only sheltered by the pier. Louis drops her head back and stares up at the wooden slats of it, the darkening blue of the sky in thin stripes beyond that. 

She feels exposed in the best way, the air cool between her legs as Niall pushes them wider apart, and Louis lifts her head to look. Sees her own ridiculous tan line, and the white-gold top of Niall's head, the line of her spine and the inviting bend of her waist into her shorts where she's kneeling, her torso low to the ground, and then she licks right up the center of Louis and Louis' head drops back again, her hips twitching against the sandy blanket. 

"You taste so good," Niall says, right against Louis' skin, licks her with her tongue flat right under her clit but not over it. Louis reaches her arms over her head, digs her fingers into the sand so she can push down against Niall's mouth, but Niall holds her hips. 

"Fuck," Louis whines. "C'mon."

"Be patient, love," Niall murmurs, and it would be prim as anything but her voice is huskier than Louis' ever heard it, spaced out and turned on. Then she laps at Louis' clit, closes her mouth around it and sucks it against the tip of her tongue. Louis swears again, trying to keep still as Niall flicks her tongue beneath her clit again and again, breathing noisily, her nose pressed into the patch of dark hair above. She spreads Louis open with one hand, licks around her slowly and then presses her tongue in, sudden and deep as she can. Louis moans, squeezes her eyes shut, rolls her hips down in time with the pace of Niall's tongue. Her hands above her head are full of sand. 

Niall makes a noise and grips at the soft part of Louis' hip, pushing down until Louis goes still again. She arches her back to make up for it, whimpers Niall's name as Niall licks into her again, then back up to her clit, feels the light scrape of her teeth. "Oh fuck," she gasps out, as Niall's mouth goes wider against her, her tongue working. Louis can feel her own slick against Niall's chin, her cheeks.

She moves with it when Niall tries to hitch her hips up higher, pushing back one thigh so she can fuck her deeper with her tongue. Louis feels the sand under Niall's hand on the back of her leg and it makes her laugh, breathless, as she pushes down into it, and Niall lets her this time, until Louis is basically riding her face. 

"Niall," she moans again. She wants to grab her hair but her hands are covered in sand, too, and it feels like she'll fall apart without the leverage to push down. "God, fuck -- right there." It hits a pitch all at once, the steady hard rhythm of Niall's tongue against her clit and all this wild heat under Louis' skin, rising in a wave, and she comes before she knows what's happening, choking off a cry with her head thrown back and the grit of the beach against her shoulderblades. 

Niall licks her through it, smooths her throbbing clit over with a gentler pressure. She kisses the inside of Louis' thigh while Louis lies there gasping, dead to the world. It's been forever since she came like that with another person, and normally she'd be up for round two right away, but at the moment she still feels like she's on fire. 

She manages to lift her head when Niall surfaces, wiping her face with one hand. She's flushed down to her bare chest, her hair sweaty at her temples and disheveled as Louis' in its ponytail. 

Louis sits up. "C'mere," she says, and Niall slips between her legs easily, drops into Louis' arms, kisses her deeply, and Louis can taste herself. She runs her hands over Niall's bare back, holds the dip of her waist and tips them down until Niall's under her, laid out sideways on the blanket and parallel to the tideline. Louis goes on kissing her, kisses her cheek and the side of her neck where it's lit up a gentle soft orange with the coming sunset. They've been so wrapped up in each other that Louis hasn't looked at it. She glances over for a moment: the sun hanging low and orange over the horizon, the grey-blue waves capped with pink where they're coming ashore only a small distance off from where she's lying on top of Niall. 

And that's what she really wants to look at, and when she does Niall's staring up at her with a mix of desperation and adoration on her face. It always goes so soft and open when she's looking at Louis without saying anything. That's when Niall gives herself away, between all the times she's being so casual or cracking jokes. She's this. She's Louis'. 

"Babe," Louis whispers, bends to kiss her again, and Niall tips her chin up to meet her, reaches back to tug Louis' hair out of its ponytail so it tumbles over her shoulder, coarse and wavy with the salt air. 

"I like your hair," she says, and her smile is ridiculously shy considering she'd just had her tongue in Louis for what felt like hours. "It smells good." 

"You're so weird," Louis says, grinning against her mouth. She dips her head to kiss between Niall's breasts, kiss the hollow of her throat, and then she pops the button on her shorts and tugs them down along with her panties. Then Niall's spread out naked under her, which does nothing to ease the twitching in Louis' clit post-orgasm.

She pushes Niall's legs apart, drags two fingers through the heavy slick of her, sees Niall sigh and shut her eyes. Louis rubs her clit slowly, kissing up the side of Niall's neck. Now that she's back in her head a little more she's marveling at the feeling of this, having someone bare and open beneath her mouth and hands for the first time. She and Niall have been all over each other already but it still feels new in each moment, each small tic of her body, the intimacy of the little things -- the red groove around her wrist where her hairband was, and the red spots she's burned where she missed with the sunscreen, and her tan lines, not as pronounced as Louis'. The freckles on her stomach, how it sounds when her breath gets caught in her mouth as she sighs. How different it is with a girl. How much Louis has missed this, and wanted it. 

She slips a finger into Niall, and it goes so easily that she adds another straightaway, fucking into her on short strokes and curling them up. Niall lets out a breathless little moan, brow furrowing, her hands restless on the blanket on either side of them. Louis is so greedy for her, wants her begging again, wants to make her come apart the way she'd done to Louis. She pushes in further, rocking up against Niall's clit with the heel of her hand, and Niall moans, wrapping her arms around Louis' shoulders and bending her knees up around Louis' hips. One sandy foot skims Louis' thigh. Niall swivels her hips against Louis' fingers, bearing down, and it makes Louis moan.

"Yeah, babe, like that," she says, muffled into Niall's neck. "Is it good? How you like it?"

"Harder," Niall breathes, then louder, "Louis, god. Please." 

"Fuck," Louis mumbles, pulling her fingers out and rubbing them hard into Niall's clit for a moment, dragging them in circles that make Niall's hips buck up. She slips them back in along with her ring finger and finds a rhythm, fucking Niall like it's with her whole body, her weight trembling on one arm beside Niall's. Louis still has her shirt on, her tits heavy between them even in her bra, rubbing into Niall's every so often. The skin around Niall's nipples is still red from Louis' mouth, and Louis feels a little light-headed when she notices it. How easy Niall is to mark up. 

Niall's eyes are shut, her mouth open wide and pretty, and Louis dips her head to kiss her and lick the sweat from her throat. 

"Lou," Niall breathes. She opens her eyes, and for a moment there's nothing else but this, not the tide or the sunset or the evening air -- just Niall's flushed face inches below Louis', the soft heat of her around Louis' fingers, their breaths coming in time. Louis' hair keeps swinging down around their faces, blocking them in. 

"God." Louis' voice comes out a rasp, and she drops to kiss Niall's throat again, can't look at her any longer without her heart beating so hard it feels like she's about to die. Niall's hands are tight around her back, her hips rocking in time with Louis' between hers, riding her fingers and the heel of her hand. Everything's gone blue around them, the sun almost below the horizon, and Louis' skin is shivery with gooseflesh where she isn't near Niall. But the space between them is hot and close, Niall's panting breaths and the sour-sweet smell of her while Louis fucks her deeper with her fingers, crooks them up so Niall thrashes, thighs going wide as she bears down for more. 

"Please, please," Niall babbles, and Louis can tell she's close. She pulls her fingers out and starts up a rhythm at her clit, whispering encouragement into her neck. And finally Niall gives a sharp gasp, body going taut, and then a long, desperate moan, and Louis feels her come on her fingers, clenching and spasming, clutching at Louis' hair.

Louis slips her fingers out when Niall finally relaxes. But she's still so wet, and they don't really have anything to clean her up with. Louis hates being left all slicked up like that. Messy, she reasons. Niall likes things to be clean. So she slips down her body and starts to clean her up.

"Oh, god," Niall pants, "why're you just doing that now?"

"'Cause you did it to me," Louis says with her lips right up against Niall. "Can't follow an act like that my first time out of the gate."

"But you're doing it _now_ ," Niall says again. "Oh my god." Her hips twitch hard as Louis licks at her clit, can't help herself. 

"Think you can come again?" Louis asks hazily. She hadn't set out to keep Niall going when she got down here, but it's hard to resist trying with her body lifting for Louis' tongue like this.

"Yeah," Niall gasps, as Louis' tongue dips into her. "Fucking -- fuck." 

Louis thinks it might hurt, when she sucks gently at Niall's oversensitive clit, but Niall's loud moan and the way her hands go to Louis' hair again say that she likes it. "Stay right there," Niall says, breathless, "right there, oh my God." Louis keeps kissing her clit, wet and messy, and Niall comes again just like that, jerking under Louis' mouth and her hands at her hips. Then she goes still.

"Jesus Christ, baby," Louis says into the soft inside of her thigh, licking the taste of Niall from her lips. 

"Yeah," Niall agrees on a sigh. When Louis looks up, Niall's eyes are wet and open, her breaths evening out. Louis stretches out beside her. 

"Are you good?" Niall asks, turning on her side to slide her hand under Louis' tank top, resting it on her stomach. 

"Yeah. Much more and I think we'd end up with sand in places it'd never come out." 

Niall giggles, ducks her face against Louis' shoulder. "That was fun." 

"I --" Louis starts, and then she realizes that everything she wants to say is crazy. How much she loved that, how much she wants to have Niall like this forever. This is how it starts with the people Louis lets fuck her up. And still she can't stop herself. She likes it. 

"I'm really happy that happened," she says finally. She feels Niall smile. 

"We missed the sunset," she murmurs. Louis sighs, slips an arm under her head and cuddles into her. 

"Nah," Louis says. "We got the whole thing. Fuck, you've been naked this whole time, Niall, don't tell me you feel like you missed it." 

Niall's just looking at her, that same soft way she gets, and Louis doesn't know what to say. They can't sleep here, but she wants to. It's always easier to just go to sleep after, instead of having to do the next-time of it right away, and then go back to their own beds. 

But they do eventually, when it gets too cold to stay on the beach. Niall gives Louis a boost back up onto the pier and lets her pull her up after with the rest of the forgotten six-pack in hand, and together they walk Louis' bike back to where Niall's parked on the road, a safe distance away. There's absolutely nobody about. 

"Will I see you tomorrow?" Louis asks. Niall smiles at her, cheeks glowing in the dark. God, Louis is so fucked for her in every way. 

"Yeah, I'll text you. We can get brunch or something. Go to the beach. I'll read to you, if you want." 

"Alright." Louis smiles at her, blood thrumming under her skin. "Goodnight." She leans in and kisses Niall, steps her against the side of her car and slips her hands into the back pockets of her jean shorts. Niall's hands are in her hair again -- she seems to like it there -- and she laughs against Louis' mouth. 

"What?"

"You've got sand in your hair. Next time we should try to find a bed." 

"Yeah," Louis says, running a hand through her hair and shaking it out. "Wish my place was an option." 

"I live in the guest house at my mam's. It's really just a big shed with a bed and a bath in it, like. She rents it out when I'm not here." Niall's cheeks have flamed up again.

"And tell me again why we just had to fuck at the beach?"

"I like the beach." Niall grins. "You seemed to like it alright, too." 

"Next time, your place," Louis says, shaking her head. She kisses Niall again, gives her a cheeky smack on the bum as she turns to go. "See you tomorrow, Nialler."

It's Louis' turn to watch her go this time, how she rolls the window down and turns on the radio before she rattles off down the street, her brake lights blazing in the blue night. Louis lights a cigarette and hops on her bike going the other direction. The saddle seat aches between her thighs, so she stands for most of the ride but feels even taller still, her head up above the treetops, floating the whole way home.

*

They run August into the ground like that, outside as often as they can be. Louis leaves the door open at the shop to let the sunny heat in, and Niall wanders in with it whenever she's not working, bringing Louis _Goblet of Fire_ and a leftover order of fried pickles from lunch at the bar and sweet kisses on the mouth in greeting across the front counter. She doesn't care who's watching, kicks her heel up like a little girl. In the long afternoons she pulls Louis into bed in her big airy room in her mum's backyard, leaves the windows open, the white curtains blowing, lets Louis ride her thigh while they make out in the rumpled sheets and then laughs with her after when she comes in a minute flat on Niall's tongue. 

And Louis is in love with her. It's like a dream, the kind where you're halfway up even as you're dreaming, wanting so badly to stay in that place but knowing it's not going to last much longer. She never wants the summer to end. 

On their days off she puts Niall in the basket of her bike and they ride through the nice neighborhoods, looking at houses that cost more than they'll make in a lifetime, shopping around like they're getting married and settling down. Niall shrieks with laughter when Louis weaves the bike back and forth across the street, holding her flapping dress down with a hand between her knees and her feet dangling over Louis' front tire. Louis can smell her hair and her skin, and she can't stop grinning, the wind blowing over her Aviators and through her hair too. This happiness feels like desperation, like she doesn't have room for all the feeling. 

There's one ridiculous mansion that's clearly gone uninhabited this season, the shades all drawn and the grass overgrown, no cars in the driveway, so Louis drags Niall through its back gate to explore. The pool is open but full of leaves, and Louis lounges on a chaise with the bottle of Pinot Grigio they brought while Niall carefully scoops the whole thing clean with the net she finds in the unlocked shed.

"You're shit at breaking and entering," Louis calls to her. "You're supposed to leave it worse than you found it, Nialler. Weren't you ever a lawless teenager?"

"Thought you liked me 'cause I'm a good girl," Niall quips, but she's grinning. When the pool is mostly clear she comes around and takes the wine from Louis, standing in front of her and tipping her head back to drink, and then she takes her dress off.

Louis can feel the heat in her cheeks as she watches Niall strip, casual and quick, dropping her knickers at the poolside in a pile with her dress and taking her hair out of its little knot. She holds a hand out to Louis. 

"Coming?" 

"Expect so," Louis says, dazed, and stands to undress too. Niall goes for her waist as soon as she's naked, and they fall, wrestling and shrieking, into the water. 

Louis does a couple of laps while Niall treads in place, watching her, and then she comes back to center and wraps her legs around Niall's waist to kiss her, the chlorine getting in their mouths. They go under like that, still kissing, clutching at each other to stay balanced in the vacuum. Niall's eyes are tight shut when Louis blinks hers open, her skin ghostly pale in the turquoise light compared to Louis'. Underwater it really does feel like this could last forever, when Louis can't tell which way is up, can't trace the origin of any sound, knows nothing but Niall suspended in front of her, her hair floating out around her head. Niall reaches for her, finds her cheek, and then there's the sound of her exhaling bubbles right before she surfaces. Louis goes reluctantly up with her. 

They get each other off in the strangers' hot tub after that, hands between each other's legs, mouths close and breathless. Niall goes pink all over like she's boiling, lets Louis kiss the diluted sweat off her temple, clutching at her as if that'll cool them down. Niall whimpers her name when she comes, shaking hard, and Louis follows her down. 

*

"Niall, what the fuck," Louis chokes out into her phone. She's curled up in the hammock, _Goblet of Fire_ shut on her lap and a cigarette in one twitchy hand. "Cedric Diggory _died_." 

"Oh, shit," Niall says. "Hang on a minute." Louis hears bar noise, then a door opening and closing and then a sudden silence. "Alright. I know, love. Did you get to the end?"

"Yeah," Louis whimpers. She's actually crying, and she wipes her eyes furiously. "There's not supposed to be death in these books, Niall. They're kids' books."

"Only gonna get worse from here, I'm afraid." A pause, then, "Good though, right?"

"It's so good," Louis sighs. "I can't believe I didn't read these when I was supposed to."

"Are you crying?"

"No."

"You are!" 

"No I'm not. You're crying."

"Lou," Niall says, affection trembling with the laughter in her voice. "They've really got you, don't they? I feel like such a good librarian. I might have a future in this after all." 

"I'm fine," Louis sniffs. "God, I just -- I wasn't ready, y'know? And -- and Voldemort's back, and -- it just feels like growing up too soon."

"I know," Niall says. "That's the thing with those books. Life moves faster than you want it to, doesn't it. Those poor kids." 

"Oh my god, and every time he sees his parents, Niall, I just --"

"I know, oh, the graveyard scene! Fuck." 

They talk about it a while longer, until Louis has stopped sniffling and Niall says she should probably get back to the bar, but Louis should come down for a drink if she wants to wait around for Niall to get off. So she does.

*

She meets Niall at the library the next day to get _Order of the Phoenix_. Niall's in a seersucker skirt and t-shirt today, and she's curled in a beanbag chair in the kids' section when Louis comes in, reading _The Very Hungry Caterpillar_ to a couple of kids with wide, attentive eyes. 

Louis comes over quietly and pulls out one of the kid-sized chairs next to her, hands folded in her lap. She's in a tank top and cut-offs, and the air conditioning feels good on her skin, and so does Niall's quiet voice. Niall looks up for a moment as Louis sits, grins and keeps going. She's on the second-to-last page anyway. 

"The end," she says to her audience, closing the book. They just stare at her, hopeful little faces upturned. "D'you two wanna draw me some caterpillars while I help this nice lady find her book?" 

She sets them up with construction paper and markers at the little table, then roots around on the shelves for the Harry Potter book, leading Louis over to the counter. "We've got some parents who use us as daycare," Niall tells her. "They're just out at the store or something, usually they come back in 20 minutes or so. I don't mind it."

"You're cute with them," Louis says. "Like you are with my sisters." 

Niall beams. The twins love Niall, of course, and Fizz thinks she's the coolest person in the world and even Lottie, who, as second oldest, sees it as her solemn duty to judge Louis' significant others, gets on with her like a house on fire. More than once, Louis has caught them laughing over something on Lottie's phone in the kitchen or drinking lemonade on the porch, chatting about feminism and boy bands and other mysterious things like they've known each other for years, while Louis changes to go out. Lottie will never give her all the details of the conversations after, even when Louis steals her clothes and throws pillows and other small objects at her head in retaliation.

Louis looks up at the high round ceiling of the library, the shelves ringing the second floor. "What's up there?" she asks. "I've never been."

"Second floor," Niall recites. "Classics, theology, poetry, drama." 

"Will you show me?"

Niall raises an eyebrow. "Yes," she says carefully, going pink as she starts to grin. "C'mon." 

Louis hides her away in the dim lighting of contemporary poets, two rows of shelving back from the balcony. "You can keep quiet, yeah?"

Niall's mouth drops open, staring, and that's enough for Louis. She goes to her knees at Niall's feet, sticks her head under her skirt and puts one of her legs over her shoulder. She pushes her panties aside and eats her out hard and quick, her whole body alight with how dirty it is, the worn library carpet digging into her knees. She can tell Niall's got a hand pressed over her own mouth, can hear the muffled sound of her breathing but nothing else. Niall's hands fly to Louis' head when she comes, sharp. She squeaks, just a little. Louis stays under her skirt, grinning and catching her breath against Niall's thigh. 

"I can't believe you," Niall whispers when Louis finally stands, wincing. She kisses her against the bookshelf. "Make it up t'you tonight," she says into her mouth. "I get off work at 10:30." 

Louis shivers. "Was hoping you'd say that." 

Niall's little kids are still occupied with their caterpillars when they get back downstairs, a little disheveled and overly casual about it. She sends Louis off with a quick kiss at the front door. 

Louis reads _Order of the Phoenix_ aloud to Phoebe and Daisy all afternoon, swinging in the hammock with them curled up on either side of her. Jay's gone to London to meet Dan tonight, so she and Lottie are in charge. They make grilled cheese and tomato soup for dinner, moving easily around each other in the little kitchen. The babies are in their high chairs, cooing and chattering to each other at the breakfast bar. 

Louis has gotten the hang of being here in the past three months. It's stayed comfortable, like it was that first night in the Sunroom with Niall. A place you could live and not hope to leave. 

"So you and Niall are, like, dating, right?" Lottie asks abruptly, when Louis' back is turned. Louis manages not to flinch. 

"We're, um. Something like that, yeah." 

"D'you think Zayn's just put you off boys forever now?"

"Lottie, I'd dated girls before him."

"True," Lottie says. Louis can hear the metallic sound of her opening a can of soup. "But is it, like, a rebound?"

"What? No."

"'Cause -- I dunno." Lottie puts her can opener down with a little clatter, so that Louis turns to face her. 

"Did she say something to you?"

"No, just--"

"She did, didn't she."

"Listen," Lottie says. "She just thinks you're leaving, you know? And… like, that it can't be that serious."

Louis' throat has gone dry. "Because I'm leaving, or 'cause… she doesn't... "

"I don't really know," Lottie says. "I just -- I wanted to make sure you knew what you were doing, 'cause…" She laughs. "She really likes you. And I can tell that you're crazy for her. It's kinda gross, actually."

Louis smiles a little. "It's not a rebound," she says quietly. "Might've started out as one, I mean -- the first time I saw her, like, just wanting something fun and easy, but. It took forever to actually happen, God. So by the time -- like, it wasn't the same, anymore. "

"Not really about him," Lottie supplies.

"No." Louis shakes her head at the floor. "Fuck, what is this? I'm the big sister, I'm supposed to be giving out the relationship advice."

"I'm not really giving advice," Lottie laughs. "Fuck if I know what you should do. I just like her, you know? I don't -- I mean, I wanna still be friends with her after you go. Just don't mess it up, okay?"

"Fine. Great."

"Good," Lottie says, turning away, but she's smiling. Louis is too, a little, but her hands are still trembling as she gets the butter out of the fridge. 

*

She stops at her favorite curb overlooking the beach on her way to Niall's that night, after promising Lottie she'd come home later on to help with the babies, and phones Harry. Fall is coming early to the air this year, like it's trying to push Louis out the door sooner than she's ready. It feels like there's a few too many cold particles mixed in with the warm around her. 

"You know you're gonna go back, though," Harry tells her. He sounds like he's outdoors around a load of people, probably at a farmer's market or some such bullshit. "I know it's important to you. And your new program and all."

"I know," Louis says. She's switched over to the communications school officially a week or two ago, signed up for an intro journalism class. Niall had been proud. "So -- I don't know what to do about her." 

"Country's not that big. You could do the long distance thing."

"She goes back to Ireland sometimes, though. And her life's just… different than mine. She told me I have roots in London, Haz." She laughs, throat tight. "I never thought of it like that, but she's right. I'm just passing through here, you know? It'd be hard." 

"I might stay," he says. "In California." 

"What?"

"I mean, I came out here to work on my music and stuff," he says. "School's just -- it's not the same for me like it is for you. This is where I should be if I wanna, like. Do all that. And Nick's a good connection. Things are going really well, y'know."

"Harry," she says weakly. She's not quite processing what he's saying. "You tell me this now?" 

"You'll still have people," he says. "I'll visit."

"You're really not coming back," she says. Her ears are ringing. "Jesus Christ, Haz, you tell me I should go back to school and leave my bloody girlfriend here in the middle of nowhere when in the same breath you're fucking off to Los Angeles for the rest of your life to be with Nick?!" 

There's a pause. "When you say it like that," he murmurs.

"Christ," she says again. She's crying now, and it's not just over losing him in London -- she knows they'll stay friends -- but over knowing she's not going to do the same thing. She's going to leave. She's more scared of staying now than she is of going back.

"Don't make me feel selfish for this," Harry says quietly. "I thought you'd get it."

"I do get it, no, Harry. Fuck. I'm proud of you, mate." 

"Thanks."

"You're welcome." She sniffs. "It's just. It's been a weird summer."

"I know, hey. You're gonna be fine. You've still got, like, your girls there, and Liam and everyone." 

"God, I know. But --" she laughs, the sound breaking in the middle. "I want Niall."

He laughs too, low on the other end of the line. "I know you do, love." 

"And she keeps doing this thing where -- she tells me to go back. Like, what if she doesn't even care if I stay? I remember we talked about how people always leave here, once, like, her friends never stick around, and I made this stupid comment, like, 'So I'm just another one of those, then,' and she was like, 'No, you're not.' But then she told Lottie that she didn't think we could be a serious thing, and I don't know if it's 'cause I'm, like, already gone, or 'cause she doesn't -- 'cause she doesn't want us to be." 

"She told Lottie that? Your Lottie?"

"I don't know, they talk. They're friends, I guess. It's sweet." 

"Louis," he says. "She's friends with your family now, too?"

"Yeah. It's been… a really long summer." 

"Just tell her, mate. Talk it out."

"Tell her what, though?"

"That you don't want it to end." 

Louis' throat closes up, and she puts her head in her hands for a moment, until Harry asks if she's still there.

"Yeah," she says. "You're right. God, I hate this, Hazza. I'm supposed to be over at her place right now and I can't stop bloody crying."

"You've got a beautiful girl waiting for you, probably naked in a beach bungalow with, like, a piña colada for you to drink off her, and you're sat here crying to me about it on the phone," he laughs. "C'mon, Lou."

"Okay." She takes a deep breath, and after a moment she says, "Man, it's like -- she just threw everything off, y'know? I was supposed to still be wallowing over my two-year mess come September, like, I was expecting to be doing that, and instead I'm -- in love with this girl." 

"Alright," Harry says. "Jesus, you sound like me." 

That makes her laugh. "What a world, eh."

"Yeah."

"When am I gonna see you?" 

"Christmas, I reckon, if not sooner."

"Well, then." She sighs. "Alright. Knock 'em dead, Styles."

It makes him laugh. "I will. Love you. Go tell your girlfriend you love her too."

The silence is loud against her ears when she hangs up, and she stares out at the ghostly stretch of beach that separates her from the black ocean. Leaves her shoes at the curb and crosses it carefully, listening to the sound of her own breathing. She walks all the way to where the tide's coming in, and then in up to her ankles, and she stands there with the steadfast rhythm of the waves pushing in and out around her feet. Then she wipes her eyes and turns away and bikes over to Niall's. 

*

There's a porch swing behind the guest house, and they sit out there drinking Shiraz, listening to crickets and cicadas. Maura had joined them for a glass, but she's gone in to bed now, and Niall's giving Louis' sandy feet an absent-minded massage in her lap.

"It'll be September in a couple of hours," Louis says. "Can you believe that?"

"I know. Summer always goes too quick."

"What do you usually do, when the season ends?" Everything goes to partial hours when the crowds leave in the winter, even the library and the Sunroom. At Louis' shop, they've been putting away some of the surf stuff and going into skate mode for the off-season, and even then they'll only open three days a week. But Louis won't be around to see that happen. 

"I dunno. I'll wander back to Dublin when the weather really goes to shite," Niall says. 

"D'you have classes lined up?"

"Not this term. My brother's gonna pay me to help take care of Theo so he and Denise can work more." She laughs. "Not half as much as they'd pay a real nanny, but it'll be enough to get me by, especially 'cause I won't have rent or anything. Staying at theirs or with my Da."

"Do you like doing it that way?" Louis asks quietly. "Living -- just, I don't know." She shrugs. "One foot on the ground." 

"I don't see it like that," Niall says. "I just have, like, a lot of homes." 

Louis smiles. "That makes it sound nice."

"It is nice," Niall says. "I don't mind it." 

Silence, the sweep of Niall's thumb in the pit of Louis' ankle, over the little scab where she cut herself shaving. "Are you asking 'cause you're about to tell me what you're doing?" Niall asks after a while. Louis looks up, but there's no more tell in Niall's face than there is in her voice.

"I mean. I've gotta be back by the 15th."

"That's right after my birthday," Niall murmurs.

"I know," Louis says. "Break my heart," and she means it.

"And -- and you're going back."

Louis swallows. "Yeah, I am." 

Niall nods, and looks down at Louis' feet in her hands. When she speaks again her voice is wavering a bit. "Well, we had fun, right?"

Louis' throat goes tight again. "Niall --"

"It's okay. I knew what I was signing up for."

"Well, I didn't," Louis says, and she scoots in closer so her legs are draped over Niall's and she can put an arm over the swing behind her shoulders. "Listen. This has been -- this is so much more than I thought," she starts, and she hasn't planned how to do this, but she can't go any longer not knowing if Niall feels the same. "And -- I know you haven't wanted to put a name on this, or, or to ask me to stay, 'cause you knew I was gonna go, and you were trying to make it easier on us."

"I haven't asked you stay 'cause I can't ask you to abandon your whole life to dick around with me doing nothing out here," Niall interjects, low. "And 'cause I'm not staying either, Louis. I won't be back here 'til the spring once I leave."

"Come with me to London," Louis hears herself say, above the thump of her own heartbeat in her ears. Niall's face does something awful then, close enough to kiss -- lifts and crumples in the space of a moment.

"You can't ask me to do that, either," she says softly. 

"I'm not, I'm not."

"You are, though." She scrubs at her face. "God, I just -- it's not worth all this, Lou."

"D'you really feel that way?" Louis asks around the lump in her throat. "Is this how it always is for you? Is this how it was with the girl that stole your bodyboard? The one who went to Santa Monica?"

Niall looks away, color in her cheeks. "Lou, don't." 

"That's why it doesn't matter to you, where you go," Louis says. "You don't let yourself care all the way."

"Lou, it's never been like this before," Niall says, and everything stops. Niall's mouth is trembling, her eyes wet as she looks at Louis. Louis made her cry. She reaches compulsively for Niall's hands before Niall starts to speak again, the hammering of her heart turning painful. 

Niall looks at her, and says, levelly, "I've had flings here, yeah. But no one's ever -- I'm never worth staying for." She laughs a little. Louis wants to hug her and never let go. "I've never felt like I could ask. I'm just… things just end." She shakes her head, wipes her eyes. "Aren't we supposed to be having sex right now?" she asks, laughing again, a broken little sound. 

Louis lets out a bark of laughter, presses her hands to her mouth, then picks Niall's back up and holds then in her own. "It's the same for me, Nialler," she murmurs. "I've never -- it's never, like --"

"Not even with -- not even the thing that just ended?"

"Yeah," Louis says. "You're not a rebound, Niall, fuck, you're, like, my reward for getting out of that. You're so much better than him. It's not even -- it doesn't even matter. You're you." She laughs. "God, Niall, I'm in love with you, you know?"

"Louis, Jesus." They're both crying, and it's so ridiculous, but Louis kisses her then, tastes salt and wine on their lips, kisses her so hard she goes light-headed when she comes up for air. 

"I'm in love with you, too," Niall whispers against Louis' mouth. "I didn't know." 

"I'm not good at saying it." 

"Me neither." 

"But we did it," Louis murmurs. Niall grins. 

"Yeah, we did."

Louis laughs, hiccoughing, and stands up. "C'mon," she says. "Now's the part where we have really emotional, crazy sex about it."

Niall laughs too, still wiping at her eyes. "I can't believe you made me cry," she says, and Louis laughs again, kisses her all the way into the guest house. 

Niall's return favor for Louis eating her out in the library is to pull Louis' hips up over her face and lick her out while Louis grips the headboard, thighs trembling, crying out and rocking down onto Niall's mouth. She makes her come twice, then shifts Louis' hips down into her lap and rearranges them so they're sitting up together, kisses Louis' mouth, bites softly at her shoulder. The lights are off, windows open and curtains blowing around like always. It makes Louis feel like the night could last ages. 

"I'm supposed to be go home and help Lottie with the babies," she murmurs, pulling at Niall's waist so she rocks into her, slick against Louis' hip, their tits pressed together.

"What are you telling me for?" she asks, rolling her hips. She cups Louis' breast like it's for leverage, leans in and scrapes her teeth over the skin. "I love these, by the way," Niall says, both hands massaging Louis' tits now while Niall rides her thigh. "In case -- in case you didn't know." 

Louis gives a breathless laugh and pulls away with difficulty. "Lie back, love."

She fingers her slow at first, kissing her nipples, her stomach. It amazes her how wet Niall gets so fast, enough to take three fingers with little more than a sigh. Louis is looking at her face as she slips her pinky in, rubs all four fingers in deeper until Niall's clenching around her, crying out with her back arched up off the bed.

"Did you just come?" Louis asks, hoarse.

"No, no," Niall says. "Are you gonna keep going?"

"D'you want me to?"

"Yeah," Niall breathes.

"Jesus." Louis presses the heel of her free hand between her legs for a moment, just for some relief. She keeps fucking Niall on four fingers a while longer, watching the line of her throat work around a moan as she tips her head back. Louis kisses her there, curling her fingers until Niall's scrabbling at her back with her blunt nails, knees bending and spreading wider on either side of Louis' hips. 

"More," she mouths into Louis' temple. "Lou, Lou." She takes a shuddering breath. "Please." 

"Okay, baby," Louis whispers. She's so amazed by this girl, by getting to do all this with her. 

She slips her thumb in among her fingers, pointing them together so they're widest at the top of her palm, and then she grinds in closer to Niall until Niall's gasping, their mouths nearly touching, then touching, then kissing properly, Louis swallowing the noises Niall's making as Louis fucks her open. She's never done this with anyone before but she knows her hands are an alright size for it, always thinks they're stupidly dainty when she's with boys but loves them now as Niall tightens around her.

"I'm gonna try now," Louis tells her into her cheek, and Niall nods, frantic. There are tears tracking from the corners of her eyes. Louis kisses one off her temple, licks her lips, and then she pushes in again. 

Niall sobs when Louis' hand goes in, and even Louis goes dizzy for a second -- how tight Niall is around her, the impossible velvet heat of it. She looks down at her wrist, the heel of her palm, disappearing into Niall. 

"Are you okay?"

Niall's gone still, her body taut, one hand clutching at Louis' hair. "Move," she gasps finally, and Louis does. Her range of motion like this isn't great, but she twists her hand in Niall, rubs into her again and again until Niall is thrashing under her, her whole body jerking. 

"Tell me," Louis gasps. 

"It's so good," Niall moans, "Lou, Christ. Need you -- please --"

"I've got you," Louis breathes, fucking Niall on her open fist. "Want you to come, baby, do it for me." 

"Yeah," Niall's gasping, rutting down frantically into Louis, "oh, God, oh my God, Lou," and she arches up once and then Louis feels her start to come, clenching so hard it feels like she'll break Louis' bones. Niall shakes hard through it, long whines pushing out of her mouth, and Louis strokes her hip, breathes into the pit of her throat, murmuring to her until she stills. 

Niall whimpers when Louis pulls her hand out after, her body curling in on itself. 

"Are you alright?" Louis tries to laugh, but it comes out weak and dazed. 

"Yeah," Niall murmurs, barely any sound of it. She's lying there with her eyes closed like she might never move again. "C'mere." 

Louis goes to her, presses a kiss to her lips like she's waking her from a long sleep. Niall doesn't move except to touch Louis' clean hand where it's stroking Niall's jaw, and it's such a quiet moment after all the loud acrobatics they just went through that Louis' heart breaks a little, to think of ever leaving this at all. 

She cleans up after, watching Niall's breathing change as she falls asleep, then sends a text to Lottie, sitting naked on the edge of Niall's bed with her hair a mess over her shoulders. It's almost two in the morning.

_you gonna be alright if I don't come home tonight ??_

_ughhh i knew u were gna do this!!!!! u owe me_

_Anything you want from the liquor store. blank cheque._

_fine ;) sleep tight_

She finishes it with some lewd fruit and finger and water droplet emoji. Louis shuts the screen off, smiling, and slips back into Niall's space. She throws an arm across her waist, pulls her in gently and tugs the sheet over them.

"Lemme be the big spoon," Niall mumbles. 

"Shh," Louis says. "You're sleeping."

"You're the little spoon," Niall yawns. She opens her eyes, blinking sweetly up at Louis. 

"Hi," Louis says. 

"Hi," Niall says, tipping her chin up to kiss Louis. "Turn over." 

"Why can't I be the big spoon?" 

"'Cause I wanna," Niall murmurs, and it's so cute that Louis just can't say no. She lets Niall press up against her back, their heads on one pillow and Niall's hand around her front. She tangles their fingers together, and she's glad when Niall's breaths slow almost at once against the back of her neck, so she doesn't have to admit aloud how nice this is. 

*

The last two weeks of summer are the fastest yet. The water's getting colder every day, and they try to go bodyboarding one more time but wind up sitting on the beach just sulking, looking out at the grey horizon. The trees are starting to shrink in on themselves, even the pines losing luster. 

Niall stands on the little foothold of Louis' back tire and they bike down Third Street to the Sunroom, so Niall can go to work and Louis can continue on to help her mum with dinner. 

"I hate this bit," Niall mumbles, when Louis has come to a halt and put her kickstand out in front of the bar.

"What, going to work?"

"Nah, fall." She bends her knees where she stands on the curb. "Come have a beer later, catch me up on _Order of the Phoenix?_ " Louis is getting close to the end -- Harry's just seen Sirius at the Department of Mysteries, and now they're in the Forest with Umbridge, who lines up nicely with all Louis' memories of her primary school teachers and a few of her professors, too. 

"I will. I have a present for you, I'll bring it." 

"Hey, me too." It seems to cheer Niall up, and she pecks Louis on the mouth before she waves goodbye. "Love you," she says, and Louis shivers. 

"Love you, too." 

The present doesn't work that well with Louis' bike, so she drives over to the Sunroom that night after dinner and leaves it in the backseat. Niall pours her a Strongbow and they share an order of fried pickles across the bar. Louis is leaving in two days. 

"So," she says, repeating the exceedingly simple game plan they've devised in the past several days. "You'll come up to London anytime you get a couple days off in a row and don't have anything else going on. And -- I'll come to wherever you are, when I do. Right?"

"Yes," Niall says, smiling. "For the millionth time." 

"And I can call you my girlfriend when people ask." 

Niall smiles so wide that her eyes turn crinkly, and she looks away. "Yes, again." She stands there cleaning a glass, looking over Louis' face. "Girlfriend," she murmurs. 

"Alright." Louis gives her some cash. "Come get your present. Told my mum I'd pack and hang out with the girls tonight so we could do family dinner with Maura for your birthday tomorrow and then I could stay over at yours." She sticks her tongue out, and Niall laughs. 

"Okay. One sec, I have to get yours."

Niall meets her on the curb with a square package in her hands, wrapped and all. "Christmas paper," Louis laughs, taking it. "You know, you're the one with the birthday tomorrow, you really shouldn't be getting me anything." 

"Just open it, Louis, Jesus."

Louis grins and rips the package open. It's _Half-Blood Prince_ and _Deathly Hallows_ in paperback, free of library barcodes. Louis' own copies.

"So you don't have to deal with a library card in London," Niall says. "Though, I guess my profession requires me to tell you you should get one."

"But since you know I won't…"

"Right," Niall grins. "This way you can read to me on FaceTime and all."

"God, perfect," Louis says, looking over the covers. "I can't believe these are the last two. Is this how it felt for you, when you read 'em all in one go?"

"Yeah," Niall says. "It's depressing. But, you know." She touches her heart, smiling her sweetest, most ridiculous smile. "They'll be in here." 

"Shut up," Louis snorts, shoving at her shoulder. Niall laughs. 

"Right then, what've you got for me?"

"Well," Louis asks. "If you'll step this way," and she gestures to the back door of her car. 

"If it's 'a quick fuck in the backseat,' I might break up with you," Niall says, but she's laughing. 

"We can do that later if you like," Louis says. "But, nah, it's this." She opens the door and pulls out the green bodyboard Niall had rented from the surf shop at the start of the summer, tied with a orange and white bow around the middle. 

"You bought it for me?" Niall gasps. "With the tricolor and everything." She takes the board from Niall, clutches it to her chest for a moment. "Thank you," she says. "This is -- God, Lou." 

"Seemed appropriate," Louis mumbles, flushed. "So now you've got your own again." 

Niall presses her against the car and kisses her, one hand still on the board. 

*

Jay and Maura give Niall a London guidebook they've conspired on at dinner the next night, all crowded around around with too much wine at the picnic table in the Tomlinsons' backyard, the crab apple tree strung with lights. It's getting properly chilly at night now. Louis keeps thinking she's leaving just in the nick of time, and then she looks at Niall and her stomach hurts. 

"If you're gonna be spending more time there, you should see the sights," Maura says. 

"Louis' probably not seen half the things in there, anyway," Jay says. Louis squawks indignantly. 

"I'm an amazing tour guide, don't listen to 'em," she tells Niall. "I've got all the hook-ups." Niall laughs, thumbing through the book while Louis squeezes her knee under the table, resisting the urge to kiss her in front of their mums and all her siblings. 

Lottie's gotten Niall something, too -- a bracelet, simple woven black leather with a silver ID bar and a monogrammed N. 

"Did you really just give my girlfriend jewelry in front of me?" Louis asks, while Niall laughs and slips it on.

"It's adorable, Lottie, thank you." 

"She's gotta look her best if she's stepping out in the big city," Lottie chirps, smirking at Louis. "Funny how your little sister always seems to be giving out the advice in your relationship, Lou." 

"Lottie, I swear to God--"

"Alright," Jay interjects, over Niall's cackling laughter. "Lottie, why don't you and Fizz help the little girls clear their table?"

"I'll take you shopping next week, Niall," Lottie says. "Before the first time you go."

"It's a date," Niall says, grinning at Louis. 

They're lying in the hammock later while Jay and Maura finish off the wine at the table, gossiping in low voices. Louis loves that they've become friends through this, too. It's been so good for all of them. Niall's turning Lottie's bracelet over, letting it catch the glow of the fairy lights above them. 

"She's such a little shit," Louis comments, without bite. Niall breathes out a laugh.

"Don't be jealous," she says. "You know I liked yours best. You've just gotta get your own board, now, and we can use 'em next summer."

"Next summer." Louis smiles, kisses the top of her head. "Yeah. It'll be free if I can get my job back."

She's happy, lying there, pleasantly tipsy and the night not too cool to force them inside. But the long slow ending still hurts. Even if it's not an ending -- the not knowing precisely when she'll see Niall next. The chance they're taking on this, hoping it'll work, that they won't just fall apart the moment they're not together. 

The birthday sex that night proves lazy and quiet, Louis' mouth, Niall's hands, both of them slow with wine and weighed down by things they're not saying. Louis sleeps there, and in the morning Maura makes them breakfast, and then Louis has to leave. She's only half packed, and there's her family to say bye to, and she needs to be back in London by tonight to make class tomorrow. 

Louis walks to her car in yesterday's clothes, Niall behind her. When they stop, she throws her arms around Louis' neck before Louis can speak.

"I'll see you so soon," she says. "Swear. Cross my heart." 

Louis holds onto her, dizzy when she shuts her eyes. "Love you," she whispers. 

Niall pulls back to kiss her, her hands sweet and insistent at Louis' cheeks, the side of her neck, like she's trying to press the feeling in. Louis gives it back to her, holds Niall's head and her soft hair and kisses her until they're both out of air. 

"I love you," Niall whispers when it's over. "Thank you for -- for wanting to try." 

"God," Louis says. "You're gonna make me cry again. I love you, too."

Niall smiles. "Call me when you actually get on the road, I can read you the end of _Order of the Phoenix_ on speaker." 

Louis laughs. "Right. My own personal audiobook." 

Niall hugs her again. "Hey," she says. "We'll be alright, you know?"

"I know," Louis says. "I do." And she'd thought she'd be crying now, but she does know, is the thing. Knows they both want this enough to make it work, to compromise and still live their lives, to support each other doing that. It's the best thing she's ever had. 

She kisses Niall one more time, kisses the palm of her hand, and then she's going. She can see Niall waving in the rearview, big and joyful, no room to be sad. It makes her smile, then wider, and then she turns on the radio and rolls the windows down and heads back to the cottage.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: [1dgaf](http://1dgaf.tumblr.com/).


End file.
